Forget What You Can't Remember

Forget What You Can’t Remember

A Novel by

Teel McClanahan III

A

Modern Evil Press Phoenix

ISBN: 978-1-934516-54-6

eBook Edition (PDF) Copyright © 2009 by Teel McClanahan III This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, entities and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher. Cover image © 2009 by Teel McClanahan III Published by Modern Evil Press, Phoenix, AZ ISBN: 978-1-934516-03-4 (paperback) ISBN: 978-1-934516-54-6 (E-Book)

– for love lost, and for love found –

Preface

T

he book you hold in your hands, Forget What You Can't Remember, takes place in the same storybook world as my first novel, Lost and Not Found. More of a spin-off than a direct sequel, this book does not have the same main characters, is not about someone trying to write a novel, and you don't necessarily need to read Lost and Not Found to understand it. I have included two excerpts from Lost and Not Found containing the portions of that book relevant to this one you can find them at the end of this book. Appendix A contains a conversation Paul had with some friends, roughly a month prior to the events of this book, about the doomsday he'd been predicting for years. Appendix B contains Lost and Not Found's description of what happened at the time Paul had predicted; a time that falls somewhere between chapter 5 and chapter 7 of this book. I've also written a collection of short stories, each created to enrich and deepen the world of Forget What You Can't Remember by exploring its peripheral characters, settings, events and ideas individually. It's called More Lost Memories, and it paints some of the stories in this book in a totally new light (like what was going on in chapter 21, for example). I hope you enjoy them. -Teel McClanahan III

Chapter 1, Part 1

“W

hat do you mean we won’t have internet access?” “Just what I said. No internet access, no phones, no communication with the outside world.” “But how will I check my email?” Lance shook his head, disappointed. “No email. You’re attending a zombie readiness training simulation. If zombies attack, it’s only a matter of days before civilization as we know it breaks down. Power, phones, the internet, even indoor plumbing shuts off in most cities without power, and the power grid requires constant human maintenance. Power plants will either be abandoned outright or taken over by zombies in a few days, either way. Essential services go down when the grid goes down.” “Couldn’t I sneak my iPhone in?” Brady was looking up a coverage map on his iPhone while half-listening to Lance’s explanation, “the map shows full 3G coverage at the campsite.” “No, you can’t just sneak your iPhone in. I know it’s sleek enough that it looks like it would fit, but even if you shoved that thing up your arse to get it up there, it wouldn’t work. Trust me. These guys know what they’re doing. They’re very serious about creating a realistic simulation, and during training they jam all frequencies that could reach

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Forget What You Can’t Remember the outside world. I wouldn’t be surprised if they managed to cut power to the cell tower up there just to be sure.” “Fine. No internet, no email. Why am I doing this again?” “You want to be ready in the event of a zombie outbreak, don’t you?” “Well, I don’t actually think zombies are real. I just heard it was a lot of fun and wanted to try it. I love zombie movies, even the terrible ones. And frankly, I’m pretty sure I’d do better than most of the characters in the movies, and wanted to see for myself.” “You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into, Brady. This group we’re going to be training with -- they aren’t doing this because they think it’s fun. They aren’t doing it because they like zombie movies. From what I can tell, not just from their website, which you must have thought was sarcastic, but from people who have actually gone up there and come back to talk about it, they consider it their duty to train enough people to survive that humanity won’t simply be wiped out. They’re building an army of survivors, people who know what to look for, how to react, how to kill and how to survive in a zombie infestation. The zombie survival handbook that everyone thinks is just a big lark?” “Yeah, I read that one. Funny stuff.” “This group basically wrote that thing as a serious survival guide. They’ve put it out, and subsequent books under the same pen name, to simultaneously raise funds to expand their operation and to get some of the basics of zombie survival out into the public consciousness instead of just the terrible schlock that passes as zombie films these days. This isn’t just some fun team-building weekend retreat. This is like a two-week survival training course from people who think normal survivalists are short-sighted pansies who don’t know what’s coming.” “And you’re sure it isn’t just characters they’re playing? Like those stupid colonial days theme park places where

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Teel McClanahan III they never drop character? Maybe they’re all just actors, pretending to believe in zombies.” “It would be difficult to say until we’ve been through it, but ... I know how to read someone, and the few people I managed to speak to in person who had done this thing have had the fear of zombies put into them. They were living in fear, ready for zombies to pop up at any moment.” “So they’re going to try to scare us? To scare us into believing in zombies? Sounds like a weird sort of cult. Well, except they let people leave, and the fee was very reasonable.” “Officially, they’re a non-profit corporation. Your fees don’t do much more than cover the expenses of training you and supplying you during the training period. Most of the re-usable supplies you can take home with you, if you choose, so you have a head start on zombie preparedness. I told you, these people believe in what they’re doing. They think they’re providing a public service up there, and they aren’t trying to cash in on the recent zombie craze; they’re trying to get people trained. They started part of the recent craze with their own books, remember?” “Yeah, yeah, I get it. My fun vacation isn’t going to be as fun as I thought it would be, and I may have signed myself up to join the world’s strangest religious cult at the same time. Is there anything else I should know?” “Just follow the directions they sent you, bring what they listed, no more, no less, and show up on time. I’ll see you there.”

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4

Chapter 1, Part 2

“S

omeone nice? I thought you said this was some sort of zombie-geek hangout male-bonding thing? You know I don’t like horror movies. Why would I want to go hang out, in the woods, with horror movie geeks?” “Well, I thought that since you wouldn’t have much competition, you might make more of an impact. I mean, a dozen guys, alone in the woods for two weeks, and you’re the only available woman they’ve seen since they left town? They’ll be begging for a chance with you.” “You’ll be there, too, Mary. No one can see me when you’re in the room, and you know it.” “That’s not true, Lorraine. And it wouldn’t matter, if it were true. I’ll be stuck on the Sergeant, and he’ll be stuck on me, and no one will dare to try to steal his woman.” “What makes you think I want to watch you throw yourself at yet another man you wouldn’t dream of spending more than a couple of months with? When are you going to think about settling down? Your biological clock must be ticking just as loud as mine, right now, and I’m not looking for some back-woods fling with a man I’ll never see again. I’m looking for the real thing.” “You aren’t going to find it through one of those dating services you use, no matter how much time and money you

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Forget What You Can’t Remember funnel in to them, and no matter how many terrible dates with hopeless losers you go on. You may as well have some fun while you’re still young enough to know what the word means.” “And you think being gang-raped by a dozen horny men in the middle of the woods for two weeks is the answer? You think that’ll be fun? Maybe you’re the one who doesn’t know what the word fun means.” “Oh, it won’t be like that, Lorraine, and you know it. The Sergeant is tougher than those mean drill instructors they have on reality shows, and he’ll be keeping the men in line.” “Hey, stop! You’re doing it wrong!” “No, I’m not! I’m following the directions on the box. It said to stir first.” “But you haven’t put the powder in, yet. First you put in the powder, then you stir, then you transfer it to the applicator bottle with the activating gel, and then you shake it.” “I told you, I’m following the directions, and it says...” She read the instructions through for a third time, her hand still stirring, still stirring, then stopping. She put the powder in and started stirring again. “I told you so.” “You’re distracting me.” “I’m not the one dying her hair because she heard some mountain-man drill instructor likes red heads. You were distracted when you came up with this idea in the first place.” “I didn’t just hear he likes red heads, Lorraine, I heard a lot more than that and if you weren’t such a prude you’d be fighting me for a chance to go up there and even try to seduce him. Which I’m going to do. How can he resist a girl like me?” “If you’re so irresistible, why do you need to dye your hair?” “I don’t need to. I want to. I want to make him happy, so he’ll want to make me happy. If you know what I mean.”

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Teel McClanahan III “I don’t want to hear about it,” responded Lorraine with a grimace, “not now, and not afterwards. T. M. I.” She laughed in response, checking the clock as she poured the stirred mixture into the applicator and began to shake it vigorously. “You should come along. I hear it’s almost all men that go to this thing, maybe you can meet someone nice.” “First of all, you already said that. Second, I’ve seen how they treat women on those shows. If it’s going to be worse than that, why would I want to be involved at all? I don’t need to go to the middle of nowhere and pay hundreds of dollars to be physically and emotionally abused. If I wanted that, I could join a local gym.” “Or a local BDSM club.” She smirked and winked. “I told you last month, I don’t want to hear about it.” “You’re missing out,” she replied in a sing-song way. “Where do you think I heard about the Sergeant in the first place?” “He... He goes to that place, too?” There was both fear and scorn in her voice. “No, but some of the men on his staff do, and one of the girls I was bound to -I can’t say who, it’s all supposed to be anonymous- was telling me about the things he did to her when she went to this thing last year. It would blow your mind.” “Don’t want my mind blown, thank you very much. I want love. You aren’t doing a very good job of convincing me. In fact, you may be doing the opposite.” “Well, the Sergeant is mine, and maybe certain members of his staff aren’t your cup of tea, but the other guys, the ones coming up for training will be the sort of geeks who have money, free time, and no nagging wife telling them that going to a zombie survival training camp is not allowed. Think about it. Sure, they like horror movies, but they’ve got disposable income and chances are that they’re smart. Maybe you can find a rich computer programmer to settle

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Forget What You Can’t Remember down with, and then you can be the one to tell him he can’t waste his time and money on silly trips like this one.” “That wouldn’t exactly make sense, if we met at one. He’d think I was as big a geek as he was, just for being there in the first place.” The forgotten hair dye was foaming out the end of the applicator bottle, and they both squealed a little as they remembered what they were supposed to be doing. Lorraine began applying the dark red dye to her friend’s hair carefully and methodically, as she had done many times in the long years of their friendship. Lorraine didn’t think long on the fact that the favor had never been returned, the idea cast quickly aside as she remembered that she’d never wanted to dye her hair. Brown was good enough for her. For a few moments, they sat quietly, Lorraine concentrating on the work at hand and Mary enjoying the feeling of having someone work through every inch of her beautiful, long hair with their fingers. Finally, falling into her familiar role of giving in to every whim ‘for friendship’, Lorraine spoke. “Alright, alright, I’ll go. But not to try to find a man. I’m just going as your friend.” “Thanks, Lorraine.” Mary didn’t say anything more. She didn’t want to admit that deep down, she was afraid of what she was getting herself into. If she actually went alone, she worried that there really might be the gang rape Lorraine had chided her about. While it wouldn’t have been her first gang rape, it certainly wasn’t something she wanted to have to repeat. Not consciously. As her head was slowly massaged from pale blond to deep red, Mary began thinking about her recent descent into kink and bondage and its possible relationship with a feeling of responsibility for what had happened to her, and with a need to punish herself, but those dark thoughts were soon replaced with the light fluffy thoughts given to her by the kind editors of COSMOPOLI-

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Teel McClanahan III TAN magazine, which she flipped through while Lorraine silently worked.

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Chapter 1, Part 3

“Y

ou mean we’re supposed to run the whole thing ourselves? From start to finish? Without help?” “It’s a test. We’re supposed to start running teams through our ‘franchise’ camp out West in six weeks. We’re already booked up for months. The Sergeant needs to know we’re ready to do this on our own.” “So he’ll be there, right? I mean, if something goes wrong...” “Well, I’m sure he’ll be actively monitoring us, but no, as far as we’re concerned, he won’t be there. We won’t see him, we won’t hear from him, and even if something goes dreadfully wrong, he’ll probably just wait to see how we take care of it. The point is to see how we’ll handle ourselves. For all I know, the Sergeant will be out there intentionally causing little hiccups for us. Bad firing pin here, contaminated food or water there, to see how well we’ve learned from him in the last couple of years.” “I’ve only been with the company for fourteen months.” “You know what I meant. You also know that if we don’t meet his expectations, he’s going to give the new camp to someone else. Maybe he’ll even try to run them both himself until he’s satisfied.”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “How are we supposed to satisfy him, if he’s intentionally trying to trip us up?” “That’s somewhat the point of the whole program, isn’t it? To be prepared for anything, to be able to survive, no matter what adverse conditions arise, no matter how bad it gets? I mean, we’re training people to live in what amounts to a post-apocalyptic world. No water, no power, grow and catch your own food, harsh living conditions, no large communities, oh, yeah, and zombies everywhere, trying to eat your flesh and convert you to their cause. There’s nothing the Sergeant will throw at us that couldn’t have happened anyway. Zombies get into your pens and turn all your livestock into flesh-eating monsters, you have to deal with that. Zombies break through your barricades, you have to find and get to another safe place, clear out the zombies, rebuild the barricade. Firing pins fail. You have to be ready for anything. Why do you think we’re all gunsmiths? You think it’s fun to make your own ammunition from scratch, or you think it’s an important survival skill in a world full of walking dead? If you take this job seriously, which the Sergeant assumes you do, you’ll do fine. If you screw this up for me, I’ll kill you myself.” “You don’t have to beat me over the head with it, I know the game, I know how seriously he takes it. How seriously you all take it. I just want to get this thing done and get out from under that man’s thumb and into our own place.” “Well, don’t worry too much about it, I’ve got an ace of my own to play this time. I’ve got a kinky little red head coming up in the next batch of trainees, and you know how the Sergeant goes for red heads. She should keep him pretty well occupied while we train the rest of the group as normal.” “What makes you think he’ll fall for something like that? Or let her get away without the full training? Have

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Teel McClanahan III you not seen how hard he is on the women who come here? He’s tougher with them than with the men.” “If they want to survive, they’re either going to have to be that much tougher themselves, or be willing to give it up to whatever strong man says he’ll protect them. Regardless, you wouldn’t be asking me that if you’d seen what I’ve seen this woman do. What I’ve seen her have done to her... Heck, if you’d seen her half as exposed as I’ve seen her, you’d have no doubts about the Sergeant’s intentions for her during the next two weeks.” “I also heard Paul might be joining us as well. That man is crazier than the Sergeant, with his doomsday prophecies. Even if the girl keeps the Sergeant off our backs the whole time, Paul is always a pain in the neck.” “I’ve got that covered, too. Paul’s just looking for somewhere to hide out. He thinks the end is coming any day now, the loon, so I told him he could use the new facility, out West, if he wants to.” “You sent him to our new camp? How are we going to get rid of him? “I told you, he thinks the world is going to be ending within the next week or two. He’ll probably go somewhere a lot more secure than some backwoods camping facility, and if he does go there, he’s sure to return to civilization when he sees the world hasn’t ended. He’ll be long gone before we ever arrive.” “If you say so...” “I say so. Now, let’s go get the zombies fed before the Sergeant makes his rounds. You know how he hates them getting too hungry right before a new group of rookies comes up here.” “Fine, but you hold the sheep this time, while I work the bone saw. I know the zombies only go for fresh brains, but I don’t need any fresh bruises, and those sheep kick hard.”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “I don’t think so. I’m the one who arranged for the red head. You hold the sheep.” “I’ll flip you for it.” “Fine. I’ll take heads.”

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Chapter 2

“I

’d love to publish it, Paul, but this book is either too late or too early, and if it’s early it’s missing an important second half.” “What second half?” “The half where we look back on what actually ended up happening. Your prose is tight, your presentation is sharp, the main character is a bit of a bore, but you’re clearly using him as a tool to disseminate a lot of information about the coming Doomsday. What really works here, what made this a can’t-put-it-down book, is the way the entire thing is set up. The whole book is building up and building up, leading the reader down the road toward Doomsday, convincing the reader more and more of the imminent destruction or catastrophe and really putting them on the edge of their seat. What you’re missing is that event and what happens next. You build up and up and up, and then you stop, and we don’t know what happens next. We don’t know what particular cataclysm struck the Earth, if any, and we don’t have any sort of resolution for the characters.” “But it hasn’t happened yet. And I know for sure that something’s coming, but I couldn’t tell you exactly what.” “Can’t tell me, or won’t tell me? I know you’ve got some contacts pretty high up and in a lot of important plac-

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Forget What You Can’t Remember es, Paul. Contacts who might have let a thing or two slip that you weren’t supposed to put down on the page, but ...” Eddie took on a whispering, conspiratorial tone and leaned in toward Paul from across his desk, “You can tell me what it is...” Paul just shrugged, and the look on his face was impossible to read. If he knew anything, he was very good at feigning ignorance. “Fine, keep it to yourself. Let your best friends face apocalypse on their own terms, and without any helpful advice or foreknowledge...” “Look, if you’ve read the book, you’re as advised as I can make you.” Paul wasn’t about to fall for such an obvious guilt trip. “Now, are you saying you won’t publish my novel?” “Not in its current state. Like I said, it isn’t coming at the right time. If I could get it on store shelves a couple of months ago, it would have been easy to sell it as-is, ending on a question mark, driving sales in a frenzy of people looking for more information about the end of the world. Six months ago, and we could have used a viral marketing campaign to make people think everything in the novel was true, and sales would have been through the roof.” “Everything in the novel is true, Eddie.” “Sure, but marketing takes time, and according to your book the end of the world is coming before I could even get a galley back from the printer, let alone a few thousand copies printed, bound, and in book stores. Your book is too late, as-is.” “I know that, Eddie. I realize that publishing takes time. What I want to know is, if the world doesn’t entirely end, if there’s still civilization and a book publishing industry around in a couple of weeks, would you consider publishing it?” “No.”

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Teel McClanahan III “No? Just... no? I thought you said it was sharp, compelling, a book you just couldn’t put down. Doesn’t that count for something?” “Not as-is. I can’t sell a book where the main character is talking about an upcoming world event that’s going to occur on a date in the past, and which has no resolution. It needs an ending. At the very least, it needs a different Doomsday date.” “The math wouldn’t work with--” “I know, I know, the math wouldn’t work with any other day. If you hadn’t managed to make the math so interesting, I’d say no simply because my imprint doesn’t print math textbooks; we print fiction. As it stands, I need you to wait and write the second half of the book. If something happens next week, everyone’s going to know about it. Write about it, in the context of your book, and write about how your characters react to what really happened. Your book ends right before the climax, but you need an act four and an act five to round it out. Where did he go, what happened to his friends and family, how did the military react, how did the international community react, everything. Your contacts can get you the full, inside story of how things go down next week, and if you write that story as fast as you wrote this one, you’ll have a finished manuscript before the end of March. Bring that book to me, and we’ll talk.” “That sounds reasonable, I suppose.” “Reasonable? That’s an amazing offer, delivered to you on a silver platter, Paul. Most new authors have to go through Hell before an editor even takes a look at their work, and then it’s on the whims of the never ending slush piles lurking at every publishing house in the industry. Because you happen to be good friends with one of the top editors in the city, me, you got your book read within days of writing it.” “One day. The last few pages are fresh off the typewriter yesterday morning.”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “And I read the whole thing last night. Fine. On the same day you finished writing it. Be grateful I even took your call.” “You still owe me one from that weekend in--” “You don’t have to remind me.” Eddie furrowed his brow, frowned, and reached into his desk for a couple of antacids. “And that’s not why I’m doing this. I’m offering you a book deal because I think your book has real potential. Potential to be the first comprehensive book on the subject to hit the market, and potential to be the only readable book on the subject in a sea of non-fiction and speculation. People are going to want to know what happened, they’re going to want to know why they weren’t warned, and they aren’t going to want to read through a thousand pages of dull analysis by scientists, politicians, and whoever else thinks they can cash in on human tragedy by getting a book to print while the subject is still hot in everyone’s minds.” “So it’s all about money.” “Of course it is, Paul. Publishing is a business, same as any other business. We select the books that we believe will make us the most profit, the fastest. It’s a craps shoot most of the time, a roll of the dice to guess what people will think is worth reading about in six months or a year, but it’s all about trying to sell books. Quality is good, when you can get it, but it doesn’t matter a whit how well written a book might be if no one wants to buy it.” “That’s pretty cynical, Eddie. I thought you got into this business because you loved books and wanted to get more great books out there. Didn’t you tell me once that it was your dream to discover unknown gems of literature and put them before the buying public? To really reach out and find new avenues of thought and show the world that there’s more depth and beauty in words than an unending cavalcade of genre fiction could ever reveal?” “Did I say that? Sounds like the folly of youth and inexperience to me. Depth and beauty don’t sell. Hell, pulp

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Teel McClanahan III fiction barely sells, outside of romance, these days. Why do you think I’m heading up a sci-fi imprint? Sci-fi readers are loyal. They know where their section of the store is, and they return to it again and again. They’ll buy book after book in never-ending series by the same one or two authors, as fast as I can get the authors to churn them out. They’ll even try new, unheard-of authors if I put a pretty enough cover on it, with a blurb from one of their favorite series authors. Editing for a literary fiction imprint is like asking to be punished for doing a good job. These days even award winning literary fiction barely moves. Last year’s Pulitzer winner pulped more copies of its first print run than it sold.” “Which one was that?” “Exactly. You didn’t read it. You don’t even know its name. The paperback will sell better, though, if only because it’s coming out at the same time the promotion for the movie version will be hitting major markets. Not that the movie will do any good. The studio as much as said they’d only bothered to waste their money on it as Oscar bait, and that award hardly sells more than a few extra DVDs these days. People just don’t want quality. They want simplicity, repetition, purified escapism.” “And you think my book will sell? That’s pretty low praise.” “Would you rather I turned you down, or told you to see someone at one of our non-fiction imprints about doing a serious book on the same subject?” “... maybe. It would seem like you were taking me more seriously.” “How about this: You write both books, the fiction book you’ve got here, plus a proper denouement, and the non-fiction book with all the facts and figures and charts and references -again, with an account of what happens, written after the fact and with references just as deep- and I’ll find an editor who will work with us to put both books out together as companions to each other. We’ll spend half as

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Forget What You Can’t Remember much on promotion than we would for two unrelated books, and make twice as much money, selling the same book twice to every interested reader. You’ll have the book that people take you seriously for and the book people want to read, and a paycheck twice as big.” “Twice the pay for twice the work? Great pitch.” “Will you do it?” “Sure.” “Alright, you deliver me two completed manuscripts by the end of March, and I’ll have them on bookstore shelves by May at the latest. Keep in mind that twenty-four months is the normal lead time for fiction, so that’s going to be cutting a few corners. I’ll have to see what other titles I can bump to get yours to the printers so fast, but everyone else will still be trying to figure out what happened while you’re going to the bank with the proceeds from the answer.” “Assuming book stores, printers, and the publishing industry and civilization generally have survived to see the end of March, it sounds like a deal.” “A crazy one, but yes, I’ll shake on it.” They stood up and shook hands before Eddie walked Paul out of his office and toward the elevators. “I’ll have a contract drawn up and sent by courier to you on March 1st; just let me know before you disappear where you decide to hole up, so I’ll know where to have it sent.” “Will do. And hey, it’s been really great to be able to see you again, Eddie.” “You too, Paul.” Paul boarded the elevator, and after the doors closed, he never saw Eddie again. Paul hadn’t been entirely forthcoming with his friend Eddie about what he knew about what was coming. By this point in his life, Paul had become quite handy and effective at withholding knowledge even from those closest to him, without raising anyone’s suspicions. Paul only hoped that Eddie’s job and his deep immersion in fiction would be

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Teel McClanahan III enough to save him from what was now only a couple of days away. The pretense of trying to sell the novel was only so he could get a chance to say goodbye, to see his good friend one more time before everything changed. The novel itself had been written out of respect for the final wishes of another of Paul’s friends, who hadn’t been seen or heard from by anyone in about a week. Paul’s sources told him that his friend had been in attendance at the regular meeting of his writing group -each member was trying to write an entire novel from start to finish in the month of February- and that after some sort of argument he had walked out - and never made it home. Paul hadn’t had the time or inclination to attend any meetings, but had found that writing a novelization of his quest to track down facts about the coming cataclysm had come easy. Working only in his off hours and while travelling, Paul had managed to write the whole thing with several days to spare. From what Paul had been able to find out, his friend -whose idea it had been to try writing novels in the first place- hadn’t gotten past about halfway through either of his attempts before giving up.

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Chapter 3

T

hose who were in the know, when they looked at Paul’s face heard a voice saying “Come with me if you want to live,” in that dramatic way they’re always doing in disaster films. Those who happened to be at least slightly more ignorant of what was less than forty-eight hours away from the Earth couldn’t see why anyone put so much respect into the queer little man. He didn’t seem to deserve it, and by the way he spoke he seemed quite often to deserve to be committed to an asylum for the criminally deranged. Still, enough of the important people seemed to think his every word was gospel, and everything else just followed along, now. In this case, quite literally. Paul boarded the plane with a long line of people behind him and no one but flight crew ahead of him. Paul received priority seating ahead of diplomats, politicians and industry leading CEOs without question or protest. They were only present because they believed in what he had to say. The few family members that accompanied them were well enough used to equating silence with politeness and civilized behavior that by the time they’d reached the hangar they were well beyond argument. A few were intelligent enough to recognize and mirror the anticipatory fear their loved-ones showed even as they boarded a plane they believed would allow them to

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Forget What You Can’t Remember escape certain doom. The mood was very somber, unusually silent, and inexplicably orderly for what amounted to a last minute emergency evacuation in the face of imminent danger. The flight was a long and silent one. The pilot had been specially selected, same as everyone else on board, and didn’t think twice when his flight plan was changed midair, or when he was advised to turn off his plane’s transponder and to maintain radio silence until after he’d reached sight of the landing strip. The pilot was not troubled in the slightest by an approach on an air strip at least a mile and a half above the ground. The landing was as unremarkable, in a technical sense, as any he had attempted. He taxied the jet into the directed hangar. They hadn’t told him where he’d be headed, but its impossibility didn’t phase him or surprise him a whit. He simply awaited further instructions. Paul was the first one off the plane, and again seemed to become the leader as the remaining passengers and crew followed him toward and then through the bright white rectangle of light that seemed to be a portal into another world - a long flight, a dimly lit hangar, and the brilliance of the artificial lighting on the other side of the door created a surreal experience for the tired and mostly ill-informed queue of people marching into the unknown. They were the final group to arrive before everything changed. “Welcome to Skythia,” greeted a young-looking woman on the other side of the threshold. “Welcome to Skythia,” she repeated to each new face whose dazzled expressions could be passed off as a reaction to the change in lighting rather than to her beauty or her unusual -to them- state of dress. “Please, follow the green way to the waiting transport vehicle,” a young-looking man directed them as they got a little further into the room. Looking in the direction indicated, Paul saw that rather than a simple green line painted on the floor directing them to their destination, the entire

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Teel McClanahan III hallway they were to follow seemed to be lined with some sort of embedded lighting; it glowed a calming shade of emerald green, switching a section at a time to white in a pattern that indicated the correct direction of travel. It was navigational information that, being immersive, couldn’t be missed, and that through the simulation of the appropriate motion, was intuitively understood. The green way. Paul led the group down the hallway. “Watch your step as you come aboard,” implored a young and androgynous-looking person who met them at the door of the transport vehicle they were meant to board. There was no gap between the platform and the train-carsized vehicle, nor really a step up, but merely a slight incline in what appeared to be an unbroken path from outside to inside. “Sit wherever you please, there’s more than enough room for everyone.” The young man and woman who had initially greeted them were the last to board, advising that “your luggage is being taken to meet you at the temporary quarters you’ll be staying in until you get settled.” Then, that “we’ve got to make a quick stop to get Paul to the mayor first, but then it’s straight to orientation for the rest of you,” and without the sensation of acceleration, they were already under way. True to their word, it was only a brief moment later the door opened again to let Paul out, and soon the sense of surety his presence had lent the other travelers began to break down. Paul, having never met most of them prior to that very week, didn’t give a second thought to them as he stepped onto a familiar-looking platform. Rather, he was engrossed in watching what appeared to be a sort of liquid gangplank recede into the vehicle upon the closing of the door -it had certainly seemed solid enough when Paul had stepped across it- and the way the vehicle seemed to float noiselessly away without any apparent means of support or propulsion. The people inside weren’t nearly as interesting to him, in that moment. Someone be-

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Forget What You Can’t Remember hind him cleared their throat. Paul realized he was standing, slack-jawed, staring down an empty tube into darkness while ignoring whoever had come to meet him. “Pardon me,” he said as he turned, “I’ve... I’ve never seen anything like it.” “Sure, I understand. Most people have a similar reaction for at least a few weeks.” The man stretched out a hand in greeting, and Paul was present enough to take it and shake it. “I’m the mayor of Skythia. We’ve been expecting your arrival for a few days now, Paul.” “I apologize for the delay, but I had a few people I wanted to say goodbye to, and a few loose ends to tie up.” “Like that novel you’ve apparently been writing?” “About that--” “No need for an explanation, Paul. Anyone who was having trouble getting through the other information, the reports and predictions, should have had no trouble grasping the scope of the event by reading your book. We distributed it to all citizens the night it arrived, and you’ve already got top reviews. Not to mention quelled a lot of doubts.” The mayor began walking away from the edge of the platform, and Paul followed. “I’m taking you to our navigational center, so we can move the city to a safe location. Hopefully we’ll have time. She doesn’t move very fast, you know.” “I’ve heard that under standard conditions, the city moves at about four miles per hour.” “Yes, just slightly faster than we’re walking now, though the top safe speed is about twice that.” “Not to worry, mayor...” Paul felt awkward continuing to address the man by his honorific, and paused, hoping for a more complete introduction. “Mayor Colm O’Reiley.” “Mayor O’Reiley,” began Paul, more confidently. “Everyone calls me Colm, or Mayor or, if they want something, Mr. Mayor. We’re all friends, here, Paul.”

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Teel McClanahan III “Alright, Colm, as I was about to say, speed isn’t as much the issue right now. The issue is mostly in knowing where we are when it hits.” “That should be no problem. We have the most advanced navigation and location identification technology in the world, and around the world. We can identify location by satellite, by subtle changes in the Earth’s magnetic field, by the positions of the stars, even in daylight, and by identification of any landmark or landscape that has ever been photographed or topographically mapped, just to name a few methods. When one option goes down, the others are more than enough, and if all else fails, we can identify where we are by knowing where we’ve been and the path we’ve followed since.” “Sounds both elaborate and foolproof.” “That’s the idea. Can’t have an entire city go lost or missing, can we?” “That’s exactly what we’re going to have to do.” Paul was the first one to reach the doors of the navigation center and he continued on ahead, once again leading someone who knew little else to do but follow along with a confused and shocked look on his face.

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28

Chapter 4, part 1

A

phone rang, and Lorraine made a sleepy groaning sound as she was half-roused from what was perhaps the most completely content and fulfilled sleep she had ever known. The phone rang a second time, and Lorraine just rolled away from the noise, burying her head in the pillow as the Sergeant grumblingly answered the phone. “What is it now, numbnuts?” The Sergeant was practically growling into the phone, though his eyes weren’t even open yet. “There’s been a... uhh... problem, sir,” came the voice across the wire. This call was being made on a line internal to the camp; no outside communication was allowed once training had begun. “What’d you screw up, now? Did you feed another paying customer to a horde of zombies?” The Sergeant rubbed his eyes with his free hand. “Nothing like that, sir. This group has been doing above average, sir, it’s not them.” The timid voice on the other end of the line was avoiding an outright declaration of what had occurred. “There’s been a bit of a snag with the uhh... With the containment of the uhh... the product. Sir.” “What product? What are you talking about, man? Spit it out!”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “The product, sir, that was being shipped to the new facility out West, sir? There was a containment issue crossing the Rocky Mountains, sir.” The Sergeant was now more awake than asleep, and growing increasingly frustrated with what he was hearing. “You know this line is secure. There’s no communication in or out of the facility during operations. So stop talking in code and tell me what happened before I feed you to the zombies myself.” “That’s just it, sir. We received a transmission on a secure frequency saying that there was an accident on the road outside Denver, sir. One of our trucks turned over, sir. The city will be overrun by morning, sir.” “Accelerate training. Wake everyone up, now, and get that group field-ready ASAP. Have what’s-his-name activate the phone tree. Let all program graduates know there’s been an outbreak, Denver is lost, and we’re looking for volunteers to attempt containment. I’ll be heading West at Noon with whoever’s on site.” The Sergeant hung up without waiting for a response. He was now one hundred percent awake. “I knew this was coming, I just never thought it would be my fault.” He lay back down next to the stunning figure of the women beside him in bed, and began running his fingers through her mousy brown locks. Still more asleep than awake, Lorraine asked, “Who was that, Sarge?” She pressed her bare back into him, enjoying the warmth and intimacy of their flesh, of his roughness and her softness. “Oh, just the end of the world as we know it, love.” The Sergeant wrapped an arm around her and squeezed her even closer. “Just the end of the world.” “Plenty of time before Noon, Sarge.” “Let’s make the best of it,” he replied, and trusting that this might be the last safe night he might ever be able to spend with this unexpected woman he had only just met but felt might be the love he’d once dreamed of, the Sergeant

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Teel McClanahan III made sweet, passionate love to Lorraine until the sun came up on their sweat-drenched bodies.

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32

Chapter 4, Part 2

“O

hmygodohmygodohmygod...” muttered Brady incoherently upon being woken in the middle of the night with the news. “I can’t decide if the news is terrible, or if it’s divine providence that we happen to be in the middle of training for this very event at the exact moment we need to be ready.” Lance was taking things better than his friend, but had been getting through their training exercises more aptly, as well. “Not to mention that we’re surrounded by experts.” “Don’t you see? This is all their fault!” Brady, forced to wake up with barely two hours’ sleep and prepare to face an onslaught of rushed -yet life or death- training to survive an apocalypse he’d just learned was real, was nearly in hysterics. “I told you we should have left as soon as we saw they had real zombies! They’re clearly insane! I mean, who keeps zombies as though they were livestock?” “They keep them so they can train people like us how to survive in the event of an outbreak. How seriously would you take the threat of zombies if we were shooting stuffed targets for two weeks?” “Those used to be people, Lance! How many of those zombies we’ve been using as target practice were people like us that didn’t pass the course? We’re practically murderers

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Forget What You Can’t Remember for going along with this! Denver is lost, and we’re complicit in the murder of millions.” Lance was calmly getting dressed as Brady frenetically packed, unpacked, and re-packed his backpack with the same basic survival gear over and over again. “I’m sure it wasn’t intentional. Everyone here seems pretty seriously concerned about the potential disaster of a zombie outbreak. I’m sure they took every reasonable precaution to prevent something like this. We’ll probably find out it’s some drunk driver’s fault.” “Why were they shipping truckloads of zombies cross country anyway?” “Weren’t you paying attention? They’re starting franchises. Well, not franchises, exactly, but additional training camps. Or they were. The team training us was supposed to be running a new, second camp out West starting about a month from now. We were like their final test.” There was a strange noise coming from outside the cabin, now. At first like branches brushing against the side of the thing in the wind, then a more insistent scrabbling sound accompanied by low moans. “This class, if it did well, would have proved they were ready to operate without constant supervision by the Sergeant. Why else do you think we haven’t seen him the whole time?” Lance was ready to go, pack on his back, weapons slung, a blunt instrument in his hands. Brady was still freaking out, now having trouble getting his guns on and selecting between a machete and a crowbar - neither of which he’d been very effective at killing zombies with, so far. “It’s that woman. She has him totally occupied.” A window pane shattered. An undead arm came reaching through, flailing into the room as though it might be able to pull someone out through the small hole the arm barely fit through. “Aaaahhh!!!” Brady was caught off guard by the sudden noise, and jumped backward without heed, practically into the grip of the zombie outside. Lance grabbed a couple of the sixteen penny nails they’d been supplied, and

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Teel McClanahan III with the clumsy help of a flabbergasted Brady, used an eight pound sledge to secure the zombie’s arm to the inside of the wall. “That’ll be one less we’ll have to worry about when we get out there.” Lance rapidly finished getting Brady prepped, shoved the crowbar into his hands, and moved toward the door. “You just be glad we got a few minutes’ warning, this time. In the event of an actual zombie outbreak, they’d be coming in through the doors and windows before you ever woke up.” Lance opened the door. Three more zombies were visible in the dim light spilling out through the doorway. Lance stepped back to let the first one in; it only moaned ineffectually in his general direction, as though surprised to be invited in. The zombie took half a step forward, perhaps pushed from behind by the others, and -not wanting to have to keep waiting- Lance brought down the full weight of his sledge into the skull of the creature, crushing shattering bone into the softer matter of the thing’s brain and killing it instantly. The immediately limp body collapsed straight down, which was what Lance had intended, and he took a couple of steps back, pulling Brady with him. “There’s really no use in complaining, now. You’ve got to admit, whether the Denver outbreak is their fault or not, that zombies are real, and we’re among a very small number of people who have any idea how to survive that fact.” The second zombie, trying to reach out for the two of them and not smart enough to bother with peripheral vision or even lifting its legs above a shamble, tripped over the body of the first zombie, dropping face-first onto the floor and writhing. The third was still having trouble negotiating the door itself. “Why don’t you try to take care of the one on the floor.” Brady began swinging -and missing- with his crowbar taking chunks out of the floor rather than the groaning, flopping undead head at his feet. Lance slid the sledge into the holster on his belt, grabbed the machete Brady had left

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Forget What You Can’t Remember on the bed, and made short work of the zombie stuck in the door. “And don’t talk to me about the Sergeant’s choice of women. You could have had that red head all to yourself if you’d wanted to.” “Hardly. She was looking for a consolation prize when the Sergeant wasn’t interested, not a consolation loser.” Brady managed to get the crow bar’s hooked end into the zombie’s skull, finally killing it before it had the chance to stand back up, but found he now couldn’t manage to wrench the tool out of the monster’s head. “I uhhh...” He grunted with the effort. He put a foot on the thing’s shoulder and pulled straight up, but because of the curved end, the crowbar just turned the thing’s head around and twisted the neck disgustingly around. “I think it’s stuck.” With a sickeningly wet tearing, crunching, popping and dripping noise, the head suddenly came free of the body. Brady swung the crow bar around madly, shook it, tried to get the head off the end of it in a total panic. He screamed. “Calm down,” intoned Lance, putting his arms out to keep from being knocked out by the bizarre spectacle his friend had turned a simple thing into. “It’s already dead, it can’t hurt you, just calm down.” When Brady finally stopped splattering black blood and zombie chunks all over their cabin, Lance calmly pulled the head off the end of Brady’s crow bar. “Okay, I can hear more coming. They probably released the entire herd, since they have free range zombies to contend with out West. Now you need to either turn that thing around or switch to this,” he said, proffering the machete. “And we need to get out there ASAP.” Brady took one look at the muck-covered end of the crow bar, the end he would have had to then use as a brain-slicked handle, and dropped it to the floor next to the pile of bodies. He took the machete. Lance didn’t leave the crow bar behind, slipping it into a loop on his pack, and led the way outside.

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Teel McClanahan III “Hey, isn’t that...” Brady pointed his machete at the zombie struggling with one arm trapped inside their window. “Yeah, he was in command when we got here. One of the dangers of a job like this, I guess, is that you become part of the herd if you aren’t careful.” Lance pulled his preferred blunt weapon from his belt and pulverized the former instructor’s grey matter without a second thought. “But if he’s here...” Brady was still stammering. He was still thinking of all the other ways he could have spent his vacation time. Brady was sure that settling down in front of his PS3 for two weeks would have been a better choice. Even mindless web surfing would have been better. “If he’s here, what happened to that red head?” “She’s either safe, or we’re going to have to kill her. Either way, we should see her soon, and you can ask her if you would have had a chance with her.” “I would have had a better chance with one of the internet porn stars I masturbate to,” thought Brady, as he followed Lance’s superior navigation skills in the direction that must have been back to the base camp. “Can we not talk about her, any more?” “Whatever you say, Brady, but if the zombie outbreak isn’t contained, she may end up having been your last chance...” Lance was just chiding him, now. He knew that neither of them would have had a chance with a woman like that, even now that they were faced with the downfall of civilization. He just tried to take it all in stride, and hoped that half a day’s more training would be enough to ready him for what promised to be a lifetime’s worth of challenge. The next few days would be the most difficult, he knew, but as he easily dropped zombie after shambling zombie, lifeless to the ground as he and Brady made their way back to the base, Lance didn’t feel like he was ready for the challenges he suddenly found himself thrust into.

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Forget What You Can’t Remember Brady wasn’t thinking that far ahead. Brady was just trying to recall all the faces of the porn stars he had realized he would never see naked again. Before long, he began thinking about their beautiful, naked bodies being eaten by packs of horrible, rotting zombies, and then he tried to stop thinking altogether.

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Chapter 5

“C

locks are off?

“All timekeeping has ceased. We’ll be able to reset to accurate time when we turn navigation and communication systems back on. Random numbers have been fed into the system, so right now it’s...” Martin checked his watch against the digital readout on the wall, “Either 62:48 or 4:81, according to the clocks in this room.” “Good thing everything’s synchronized throughout the city to a centralized control. You’re sure no one has manual timepieces?” Paul wanted to ensure everyone’s safety. “You saw me announce the changes to everyone,” said Colm, “and most of them read your book, or the earlier reports--” “Ninety-seven percent said they’d finished it,” read Martin, from the list of relevant statistics coming over the feed. “Right, so they know it’s life or death that they don’t screw this up. They voted to trust your judgment for the next few days. Anyone who gets antsy not knowing the time and digs out a non-networked relic is risking suicide, and they know it, Paul.”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “Alright. So, time, taken care of. And space?” Paul looked up at the countdown clock. All the other heads in the room looked the same way. “We’re adrift right now, and until that countdown time reaches zero. Then the randomizer we designed kicks in.” Martin was clearly uncomfortable with the idea that the entire city was simply being left to literally blow in the wind for the next several hours. There was an unmistakable questioning in his voice, and a look in his eyes like a trapped animal facing imminent danger. “All navigation and location identification systems are offline. The only thing keeping us from smashing into the side of a mountain or a city skyline is a periodic proximity detector.” “Well, that and our altitude,” corrected another technician, whom Paul had not yet been introduced to. “Right, in order to get a good drift, we’re pretty high up.” There was that look in Martin’s eye again, “although there’s no way of knowing exactly how high any more, since right now altitude controls are offline. It’s up to the buoyancy systems, and the margin of error on that is--” Paul interrupted, trying to stay confident and in control. “That’s enough of a margin that we won’t know how high we are. That’s the whole idea. Which is why the city will be moving randomly about the sky for the next couple of days. And you’re sure no one will be able to see out?” “So they can’t identify where we are by sight, yes. The atmospheric damping system is effectively opaque, now. I didn’t even know it could do that.” Colm had been surprised to look out the window and literally watch the sky disappear into a uniform field of white. The system was a sort of energy field that was used to keep extreme weather conditions or lack of atmospheric pressure from interfering with residents’ daily lives - a must for a city that spent a fair amount of time at or above cloud level, where the idea of weather was not culled from a meteorological vocabulary common to those who lived their lives on the ground. With the adjust-

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Teel McClanahan III ment the techs had made, it was now a milk-white dome of light surrounding all of Skythia and giving off enough nondirectional light that it seemed to be a strange sort of shadowless, endless, overcast day. “It’s remarkable.” “Hopefully it remains stable at this energy level. We’ve never run the system this hot before, let alone at high energy for two days straight.” “If it gives out, and we’re someplace recognizable, we might all be lost forever, so keep a close eye on that.” “I’ve got a few alarms in place. If there’s any fluctuation, I’ll know about it.” Martin was more confident in his skills as a technician than in the plan his skill was being applied to carry out. “No one’s going to be able to see out, but what about people seeing us?” “It can only do them some good, Martin. I don’t know how particular this thing is going to be, and I don’t want to take any chances with Skythia and her residents, but it’s possible that seeing a giant, city-sized, floating, glowing bubble will get people wondering enough. Dreaming or daydreaming about what they might have seen float slowly above them.” Paul tried to think of yet another way to express himself that his predictions, reports, and novel hadn’t. “You’re relatively safe, here in Skythia. I mean, you live in a flying city that’s been kept a secret from most of the world. Your society isn’t grounded in something as boring as money or political power, and most everyone here gets to live out -or at least attempt to live out- their dreams, passions, and whims. That alone should be enough to give Skythia a chance, even without the so-called magic and supernatural influences others have predicted may be required. It’s most everyone who doesn’t live in Skythia that’s in danger. If our being spotted saves a few lives through random chance, that’s providence, not the betrayal of years of secrecy.” Martin kept his mouth shut. Colm tried to steer the conversation back onto the proper track. “So, time and

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Forget What You Can’t Remember space are obfuscated. Anything else we need to be worried about, Paul?” “As far as I know, all we need to do now is wait. We can’t set a timer, or someone could work out the time from that, so how about we just rely on two or three cycles of our circadian rhythms before we shut this stuff down and take a look around?” “Skythia will effectively be on holiday until you give the go-ahead, Paul,” advised Colm. “You missed the regular orientation with the group you were travelling with, but it’s getting pretty late...” Colm looked at his watch and shook his head at the numbers there. “Well, it feels late, anyway. Why don’t I see you to where you’ll be staying? You can get some sleep, and I’ll be sure someone gets you to an orientation in the morning. ... Well, when you wake up, anyway.” Colm led the way, and he and Paul made their exit from the navigation center. “I’m already somewhat familiar with how you operate here, Colm. Direct Democracy, all that...” Paul wasn’t sure how he felt about going through the full resident orientation. He wasn’t sure he really wanted to consider Skythia his home. Paul knew that there might not be much else left in the world after a couple of days that could be called home, but couldn’t shake his reservations about the radical way of life they had adopted there. “Direct Digital Democracy, yes. There’s more to it, though. Our justice system isn’t what you’re used to, we don’t function economically, as you reminded the technicians a moment ago, and it’s easy to get tripped up your first few days among us.” They reached the platform just as a vehicle was pulling to a stop in front of them. This one was not much larger than the car of a tilt-a-whirl, if it had been closed all the way around instead of hemispherical. The floating sphere seemed to split down the middle, and two quarters of it slid around to the right and left revealing two large and comfortable looking seats within. Following

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Teel McClanahan III Colm’s lead, Paul set down directly from the platform, backward into the provided seat. As soon as he had done so, the two sections that had moved out of the way began sliding back into place, and in seconds they were sitting inside an apparently unbroken sphere. “I can’t feel any motion,” marveled Paul. “Surely, we’re moving by now.” “There’s not much to see, but I can have the system put up the exterior on the display.” Colm tapped a few things on a console Paul hadn’t noticed at first, and the whole inside of the sphere seemed to become transparent. Paul could see that they were moving. Very quickly, in fact. The majority of the transportation system was unlit, and the vehicle they rode in wouldn’t normally have given off any light, but Colm had turned on exterior illumination for Paul’s benefit. “Sorry it isn’t prettier, but since there are no human drivers, there’s not much call for either lighting or aesthetics.” Except for the occasional flash of light from a stop they were moving by, Paul could only see the very near walls of the tube they were in, and a few feet ahead of and behind their current location, before his vision seemed to be telling him there was nothing but black. Deep black, like he imagined blindness to be. “Here, uhh...” Colm tapped out another sequence on his console and a holographic projection of the entire city seemed to be floating ahead of them in the tunnel. “That blue line is this tunnel, and the white dot there is us.” Colm seemed to have remembered something, and as he delved deeper into the interface’s intricacies he made little noises of discovery. And blindness turned into a sort of perspective nightmare as the tunnel’s lights came on. The blue line on the floating map had turned to a blinking red. “I can’t keep the lights on long, of course. It’ll hold up traffic. I’ve had to tell the system there’s a problem and we’re in the tube for maintenance - I remembered it has to have lights in case of emergencies, maintenance, or if someone were in the tubes and not in a vehicle.”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “Of... Of course...” Paul estimated that they were traveling at race car speeds and cornering without slowing down, but he couldn’t feel any acceleration forces. The disconnect between what his eyes could see and what his body was feeling was giving him a sort of virtual nausea. “Oh, sorry,” Colm quickly recognized the look on Paul’s face and switched the exterior display and tube lights off. The inside of the vehicle returned to normal lighting, and only a window-shaped section of the surface in front of them still showed the three-dimensional map of the city. The line was back to blue, and it looked like they were about to arrive. “That’s not part of the orientation, is it?” Paul still had a hand to his mouth and a queasy look on his face. Colm was apologetic, “I’m sorry, I know, it’s just that I love the whole thing. I forget that other people can’t take it. When you’re more used to it, maybe I’ll take you out sometime with the inertial damping systems turned down. Some people handle seeing it better if they can feel it, too.” The map suddenly split in two as the vehicle opened up again, at their destination. They stood up out of their seats directly onto the platform. It was perfectly aligned, designed to be intuitive. The sphere behind them waited until they were walking away before it closed and zipped off into the system, awaiting another pair of citizens to mobilize. This platform wasn’t designed for large groups of people, it was hardly more than a foyer, and in a couple of steps they were passing through the double-doors and into the city. It was like nothing Paul had ever seen before, and made more surreal by the ubiquitous, non-directional light and milk-white background to everything. Paul thought he could hear a slight electrical humming as well, and wondered if it was the sound of the electrical shell around the city or the sound of the city itself. “We could have gone directly to your accommodations, every building is connected to the transports, but I thought

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Teel McClanahan III you might want to take a look at her.” Colm’s pride and appreciation for Skythia had certainly been a factor in his selection as mayor, and he loved to watch people seeing the city for the first time. Paul’s neck craned. He turned and turned, he stumbled and stepped, he was in awe of it all, and he knew -somewhere in the back of his mind- that he was only seeing a fraction of the city. “Isn’t she lovely? Get some amazing contrasts in the perspectives having everything so close together gives. No six-lane roads separating buildings, just foot paths, bike paths, parks and the like. The transport system we were just in, as you saw on the map, is like a root system, running underneath everything, and then reaching up into every building taller than a few levels above street level.” “Street level? How much of Skythia is below street level?” “Oh, you know, all the works. Centralized computing, power, fabrication material, transportation, all the large-scale plumbing and recycling systems for keeping things running. Not to mention levitation and propulsion systems.” Colm pointed up at the milk-white dome of ionized particles that made it seem like an overcast day crossed with a virtual reality sim. “The entire city sits within a sort of flattened bubble, and that’s the top half of it. It’s not a physical bubble, but a sort of bubble of limitations. We can’t build outside the bubble, or the damping field won’t hold. Tallest structures to the middle,” he pointed straight up; they were apparently in the center of town, “almost two kilometers high, reaching toward the electrical shell.” His arm followed the arc of the skyline to the horizon, and Paul’s eyes marched right along behind the path it traced. “Not everyone chooses to build as tall as possible, but you can see where the edge of the city is, even without it being lit up like this. Street level, then, is the plane at the center of the bubble -or, as they’ll explain when they go over all this in your orientation, tomorrow- a circle

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Forget What You Can’t Remember in a plane perpendicular to a line which points at the Earth’s center of gravity, adjusted for municipal acceleration. The works, below, can’t go outside the bubble below either, but so far they haven’t had to consider the limits of that space when building down there. Yet.” “This is all just...” Paul was still trying to get his eyes to acknowledge that the architecture of the buildings standing over him were real, rather than simulated or imaginary. “I’d read about it, but...” “She’s really something you have to see for yourself to understand. I’ve tried to have most people arrive during daylight, so they can see some of the city before going through the disconnected and overwhelming detail of orientation. Luckily for you, your modifications to the atmospheric damping system have turned night into light.” Colm put an arm around Paul’s shoulder and began leading him down the street to the building he’d be staying in. “I’m sure you’re going to like it here, Paul. I can’t wait to see what a mind like yours is capable of in an environment without traditional restraint.” Paul couldn’t stop staring up and down at the alien architecture, down the long, empty street between the bizarre, close-packed structures, his feet following unthinking as he was welcomed into this strange and beautiful place.

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Chapter 6

“T

ell me again why I agreed to this,” said Lance with a grunt as he helped Brady over another high wall. “It’s not like they gave us a choice.” Brady tried, paradoxically, to catch his breath as they ran. “The Sergeant was taking every man, woman and child he’d trained along with him to Denver whether we liked it or not.” “He wasn’t the one who trained us.” Lance stopped running. “Hang on, I think I saw something moving in that alcove.” Brady stopped running, but was breathing so loud that neither of them was sure they’d heard anything, when whatever was lurking in the shadows seemed to move again. “Shhh... !” “I’m breathing...” he gasped, “as quietly...” more sucking sounds, “as I can.” Brady wasn’t exactly in shape for this sort of work. “Look, there’s no reason to go poking around in dark corners, trying to get attacked. Remember your training. Use language.” Brady raised his voice in the direction of the shadowed alcove. “Hey, you, are you alive? It’s important that you answer, because zombies don’t use language, and we’re going to kill you if you don’t answer.” A man burst out into the moonlight flooding the street, waving his arms and shouting.

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “Don’t shoot! Don’t kill me! I’m alive. One of those things bit me, but I’m--” Lance shot the man square between the eyes before he could finish his sentence. The forward momentum he’d had in running right for them was able to carry his body another couple of steps before he tumbled into a half-somersault, half-heap. “Can we move on, now? We’re going to be late.” Lance had his three-million-candle spot flashlight trained on the alcove now, to be sure no one else was going to burst forth. “You’re the one who got us turned around back there.” Lance bounced the light over the building rising up above them, looking for anything that might be peering down on them from the windows above. Or worse, about to drop on them unexpectedly. “One way streets always get me mixed up.” “We’re on foot.” Lance had re-slung the flashlight, and they began running again. “And there’s no traffic. It’s the middle of the night, after zombies have been loose in the city for over thirty-six hours. No one else is stupid enough to be out here right now.” “Yeah, but how was I supposed to know Speer was taking us in the wrong direction?” “Maybe because every road it intersected with was at an angle?” “Look, I’ve never been to Denver before, and we don’t have a map.” “Whose fault is that, Brady?” “We couldn’t have read it, anyway! Don’t look at me like that, it was covered in zombie blood. It’s not like I’m the one who exploded a zombie’s head all over the map.” “It was about to bite you! You let a zombie walk right up behind you, you were so distracted by trying to figure out the map. If I hadn’t shot the thing, you’d be dead right now.” “Like that last guy, no doubt. Shot down for having been bit.”

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Teel McClanahan III “Exactly. You know there’s no hope for anyone who gets bit by one of those things. Though how you can be so careless is beyond me...” Lance reached Colfax, looked both ways, shrugged, and turned left. “Hey, stop. Wrong way,” corrected Brady. “We’re supposed to go this way.” “That was before we got lost. It’s this way. That way is back to the freeway and the stadium, this way is the civic center, and we barely got out of the stadium alive the first time.” “How were we supposed to know that everyone who went to the stadium to try to regroup with other survivors had been turned? Of course, the view was better than any zombie movie I’ve seen. There must have been over ten thousand undead back there.” “Probably closer to a hundred thousand, easy. That stadium was like a giant bowl full of zombies. The stands were full, the field was crawling with them... You crossed the parking lot with me, there were probably twenty thousand of them in the parking lot alone.” “We crossed the lot twice, Lance. Once to get in, because you were sure there would be survivors who had managed to keep the zombies out, and once more when we’d seen more zombies in one place than I really know how to explain.” “Like I said, probably a hundred thousand zombies. The stadium seats about seventy-five thousand, so as crowded as it was...” “Numbers like that fail to explain it. It was... I don’t know whether to call it insane or beautiful.” “It was a tragedy, is what it was. All those people are dead, Brady. The city is going to have to be nuked, and even that won’t do any good if a single zombie escapes, or if a single person got bit and already drove himself out of town.” As they got nearer to the civic center, there were more and more zombies shambling aimlessly through the streets.

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Forget What You Can’t Remember For most of their journey, Lance and Brady had been able to either kill every zombie they’d seen or -as with Invesco Field at Mile High- just enough to clear a path without getting caught. There were plenty of lifeless bodies on the ground in this part of town, showing that the other teams they were supposed to be meeting had already been this way, but additional undead seemed more than willing to wander aimlessly in the place of those now stilled. The zombies began to grow thick enough that they couldn’t all be taken down with blunt instruments as a literal matter of course -by zigging and zagging back and forth toward whichever zombie was nearest and still in the direction they were generally headed- and yet sparse enough that more radical weapons like grenades and flame-throwers would be somewhat wasted on them. “I think I’m getting the hang of this machete, now. It only took a few hundred zombies, but I can usually decapitate them with a single swing.” “As clumsy as you were during training, it’s a miracle you’re still alive.” Brady pointed ahead to the crowd gathered at the amphitheater in the park. “Look who else is still alive! Talk about a miracle.” There, lit by the ring of fire that surrounded the amphitheater, among the few hundreds of survivors that had been saved from around Denver by a few dozen of the Sergeant’s faithful, was the red head from their training group. She looked worse for wear, a different person than she’d been the first day of training, but it was unmistakably her. “I’d hardly call that a miracle. Any man alive would put his own life at risk to save a woman like that. Especially if he thought she’d put out.” Lance and Brady were leaving a trail of dead zombies marking their progress, though not on the ground as they had in other parts of town, but merely by clearing a path among those remaining standing; the ground here was already too littered with corpses for a few more to

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Teel McClanahan III make a difference. “Which any woman wanting to be saved from zombies would at least imply she’d do.” “It looks like she may not have... ‘relied on the kindness of strangers,’ as you failed to more delicately put it. She looks...” “Oh, so now you’re interested in her? It was all I could do to get you to look her way during training, but now that we’re surrounded by zombies and death, she’s starting to catch your eye? I don’t get you, man.” “I don’t think you get her, either.” The guards at the only part of the circle around the amphitheater that wasn’t on fire allowed Lance and Brady to pass without question. “Do you recognize either of them,” Brady asked Lance as soon as they were out of earshot, “or do you suppose they’re from around here?” “Does it matter?” Lance was fighting his way to the front, trying to find the Sergeant to report back about the stadium. “As long as they keep the zombies out, right?” “I guess so...” Brady spotted Mary again in the crowd. “Hey, I’ll catch up with you later, okay?” “Yeah, no problem. Not much to report, anyway.” Brady had already disappeared into the throng, but Lance wasn’t paying him much attention, either, as he couldn’t seem to find the Sergeant anywhere.

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Chapter 7

“P

eople are getting tired of this. They’re asking if it’s safe to turn the sky back on and the clocks back on and find out what happened. They’re beginning to doubt your predictions.” Colm had waited until they’d finished breakfast on the third day after everything had been masked and randomized. “They’re sure that the appointed time has already come and gone, and since there were no detectable changes...” “Right, well, there wouldn’t be any. In fact, there’s a chance that major changes have been made, but that they were made retroactively so that everything will seem to be exactly as it was before the event.” “You’re saying our memories of what the world was like may already have been altered?” “Hard to say until we reset the systems and take a look around and see if the world looks changed or if it’s exactly as we remember it. There’s a good chance that I’ll get lynched for this. An advanced enough and subtle enough event would have left no trace that it had ever occurred.” “Rest assured that there are no lynch mobs in Skythia. Also, since we took it to a vote, there’s no basis for legal action, either. The majority agreed that it would be better to trust you and take precautions than to do nothing, and I

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Forget What You Can’t Remember know I understood that there was a chance that the world would undergo a cataclysm of which there was no lasting evidence. It was one of the theories in your novel.” “Well, I guess it’s time to see.” Paul swallowed the last of his coffee and they stood up to make their way to the navigation center. A full staff of technicians, including Martin, was there to greet them, eager to get to work on the challenges of getting everything back online. All heads turned their way expectantly as Paul and Colm entered, frozen in anticipation of permission to get started. Paul had only to nod and give a dismissive sort of ‘go ahead’ hand gesture before the room exploded into activity and noise. Paul turned toward one of the larger sections of the display, which showed a live shot of the city skyline against that odd white glow. Within a few seconds, the glow began to fade. The sky began to shine through. The view became a stunning sunrise behind the beautiful alien architecture of Skythia’s skyline. Momentary applause broke out across the room at the sight of this; the nonstop, non-directional, featureless light of the last couple of days had taken quite a psychological toll on residents. “How are the navigational systems coming along,” asked Colm of Martin. “Where are we?” Martin pulled up a map of the world on a nearby wallpanel. “When I know, you’ll know. We’ll be a big white dot on this map as soon as the computer knows.” Martin turned to the room of technicians, busily typing away or bustling about, and called out, “NavLoc status, everyone, just like the drills!” One at a time from around the room, and without looking up from whatever terminal or console they were working at, technicians began reporting their statuses. “Star map is at twelve percent. Sunrise is causing some interference, but we’re working through it!” “Landscape recognition is processing, but it’s the same problem with sunrise giving bad data in the visible spectrum.

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Teel McClanahan III Echolocation and laser reflection scans are at thirty percent so far.” “Three of twelve ley lines have been detected and one intersection point found.” “Fae Æthernetwork is online and downloading updates before we can get telemetry. I guess there was a viral outbreak and they won’t grant access until our systems are patched and scanned.” “No cities visible on the extended horizon, but I am picking up radio communications, so I’m trying to pinpoint the source.” “Magnetic North locked in, one hundred percent. Sunrise correlates to East, and we are working on correlating sunrise location with the star map to fix a position and verify date and time.” “City rotation correcting, North to North alignment in... two minutes.” Martin nodded as each technician had reported in, checking off the same stats on his handheld display, one at a time. Of course, everything had matched, but in case of problems they’d practiced oral updates while they’d waited for permission to bring everything back online. “As you can see, we’ve got things under control, and should have our location fixed within a few minutes.” He tapped away at his console and a large white circle appeared on the world map. “We’re somewhere inside that circle, based on the data we have so far, and you can see it’s shrinking. Now, if you don’t mind...” and without looking up to see if they had a response, Martin was back at work. Paul and Colm didn’t have much else to do but watch and wait, so they took a couple of seats and watched the sunrise over the city on one display and the circle representing their possible location as it shrank and shifted on another. Occasionally, one of the techs would shout out an update to the rest of the room, punctuating the din. “FÆ is done patching, coming online.”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “Star map at sixty percent, but we’ll need to wait for the Earth to swing around to get much more.” “Clocks and calendars are coming online and updating citywide to verified date and time.” “Six ley lines detected. Eight intersects, including Second Prime. Tapping in to recharge.” “Avalon, Waterfall City, Tranquility Base, Haven, Jerusalem, everything seems normal. According to the network, everything’s still there.” Paul shook his head. “Of course they are. Of course everything seems fine. If I’m not lynched, I’ll be deported.” “Relax, Paul. It’s all good news, so far. Good news is good.” “It’s a distress signal!” The woman monitoring the radio was suddenly standing, one hand pressing the earpiece of her headset hard to her ear, listening intently as she reported aloud to the room. Silence fell, as everyone stopped to listen. “Denver. Denver has been overrun by... zombies. Over a million projected undead. A small team has been trying to find survivors... They are requesting assistance. The message repeats. I think it’s automated.” She looked to Martin for direction. Martin looked to Colm. “Well, not all good news, then,” Colm said softly to Paul before speaking up to address Martin, and the other expectant citizens around the room. “Record the message and forward it to me. You, scan the FÆ to see if anyone else knows about this, and whether anyone is already taking action. I’ll put together an information package and put it to a vote in... Let’s say fifteen minutes?” Everyone burst into motion and noise again, with a renewed sense of urgency. NavLoc had to be fully operational if they were going to be able to get to Denver to offer assistance. Paul looked at the map. The circle was nearly a dot, now, and the dot was closer to Denver on the map than any other city he could see. Paul wasn’t sure whether to be relieved that the focus would be taken off his apparently un-

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Teel McClanahan III necessary precautions -which had probably saved all of their lives without their knowing it- or to be horrified by the prospect of a full blown zombie outbreak in a major city. Over a million souls, lost in a matter of days. He sneaked out of the navigation center unnoticed, and returned to his room to think about the future.

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Chapter 8, Part 1

T

he tiny dark spot on the distant horizon grew slowly, gathering detail and interest as it approached at its top safe speed. Those on the ground had been in Denver for the better part of a week, fighting for their lives and trying to locate and protect survivors from the generally hopeless eventuality of joining the undead horde. While they waited for their apparent rescue, there was still the matter of the million or more undead roaming the city day and night to contend with. Containment had been impossible, the Sergeant had given up on that almost as soon as he’d seen the state of things first hand. They’d taken too long. There hadn’t been enough men sent with the original transport. Most of the city’s population had been turned or eaten before the Sergeant’s forces had been rallied - even three hours ahead of schedule. By the time they got a response to their distress signal, several days into their ordeal, Denver had been pretty well swept for living and the living had been pretty well trained in how to keep on living. The Sergeant’s forces had swelled considerably. After they’d made contact with Skythia, the living had begun a relatively quick march West to the stadium, cutting a wide swath through the undead who got in their way. When they’d arrived at the stadium they began the hard work of

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Forget What You Can’t Remember trying to clear the place of undead. It was grueling work, but after the first day they’d managed to build a perimeter fence out of the bodies of the zombies they’d killed, stacking them like cordwood. The next day they did their best to get the zombies herded out through a temporary opening they’d left in the wall of bodies. The several hundred of them were able to direct the flow of undead traffic with ease after a few frustratingly unsuccessful hours, and by the time the floating city was just visible in the sky far away, eighty or ninety percent of the undead throng had been tricked into wandering the streets instead of hanging out at the stadium. As the hours passed and the speck grew into the apparent size of the moon without seeming to get any nearer, groups of the filthy, weary killing machines that the living had become spread out to locate and kill the lost, trapped, and straggling zombies that had not managed to stay with those headed outside the perimeter. Others formed a terrible sort of body brigade, passing the dead bodies and parts of bodies that littered the grass of the ball field, one to another until they reached the horrible wall of rotting flesh, where they were added steadily to the piles. They’d been told a landing site would need to be cleared, and that the football field would be sufficient, if they thought they could clear it safely. So that’s what they did, hour after hour as an object orders of magnitude larger than the space they were clearing kept growing nearer and huger in the sky. There was not one among their number who, by this time, had not experienced that strange sort of psychological disconnect that allowed them to handle bloody, rotting, mutilated human remains without disgust. They were beyond the natural human reactions to human suffering, beyond the humane revulsion for the dead and for blood and injury and loose organs and decapitated heads. There is a psychological break that most surgeons are able to create between the people that their patients are and the abstracted specifics of what they do inside them, and the break these people were

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Teel McClanahan III experiencing -the break which allowed them to work so methodically and unemotionally at these horrifying tasks- was well beyond that. Many of them, if asked -even as they were doing it- what they had done or were doing, would simply and honestly be able to say that they didn’t know, couldn’t remember. They knew only that what they were doing had to be done. By the time the edge of Skythia began to creep by over their heads, plunging the entire area into shadow, their methodical diligence had managed to complete the task, and everyone was finally able to rest.

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Chapter 8, Part 2

“W

e’ll have to keep them quarantined, you know. It could be days, maybe weeks before you were allowed to enter the city proper again.” Paul had already made up his mind, “I know that. I also know that there’s a risk of infection, and of death. I’m not worried, though. From the sounds of it, these people know what they’re doing. I don’t expect we’ll see any zombies while we’re down there. The stadium appears to be full and well cleared, compared with the streets surrounding it.” “Don’t take that for granted, Paul. Zombies are serious business. I don’t even know why you’ve volunteered for this.” “What else am I doing, Colm? If I keep showing my face around here, I’m liable to get assaulted. This gets me out of sight for a little while and gives me an opportunity to maybe do something that people will see as a good thing for a change.” “No one’s going to assault you, Paul. Not without your consent. And I’m not sure how much good you’ll be, there’s already a skilled medical team attached, management, orientation crews, the works.” “I can be like an intern or an extra hand when needed, and I can help with basics like getting people assigned to

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Forget What You Can’t Remember their temporary sleeping arrangements, or with serving out food.” Paul wasn’t sure why, but as soon as he’d heard that a group was being sent down for the pickup and would have to be quarantined with the survivors, he’d had a strange but powerful urge to be among them. “Besides, what else would I be doing? House shopping? I don’t deserve a jump on the housing market ahead of anyone who has been through what these people have been going through.” “You know it doesn’t exactly work like the traditional housing markets you’re used to, Paul, but... I see I’m not going to be able to talk you out of it, so I may as well sign off on it.” Colm pulled up the appropriate interface and added Paul to the approved list of volunteers. “You’d better hurry, though, because the commerce center starts dropping in about twenty minutes.” “I thought we wouldn’t be centered over the stadium for an hour or more.” “We won’t be, but we’re maintaining our normal altitude for populated areas, which is over a kilometer up. The drop has been timed to reach the height of the stadium lights not long after the city stops moving, so it needs a head start.” Paul felt stupid for not having thought about the time it would take to reach the ground. He was still not thinking three-dimensionally about location, which seemed to come naturally to longtime citizens of Skythia. “Don’t know why I didn’t think of that.” “You didn’t have access to the full plan, since you weren’t on the list, and thus didn’t have the full itinerary. Here,” he handed Paul the handheld display he’d been working from, “why don’t you study the plan on your way down there.” “Thanks,” said Paul as he turned and began sprinting toward the nearest platform. “Don’t forget to look up,” shouted Colm after him.

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Chapter 8, Part 3

T

he commerce center, which resembled a four story tall layer cake of a building being lowered on sky hooks into the stadium, made surprisingly little sound as it finally touched down. The field’s now putrefying grass would certainly not survive long with a building suddenly lowered onto it, though the residue of what had transpired there in the last week would prove to be an excellent fertilizer the following season. The precision of the drop was remarkable, and had there been more clearance between the diameter of the structure and the space it was coming to occupy that precision may have gone unnoticed, but since there was now not even enough room for a skinny survivor to squeeze by on either side, it was clear that the citizens of Skythia knew what they were doing. The smoky glass perimeter that at first had seemed a continuous wall all the way around the first level of the building now began to open wide, and in seconds there were broad entryways -as wide as the field’s sideline markingsfacing both goalposts. Skythians were ready and waiting at each side to meet the survivors, to welcome them in and to provide medical assistance wherever needed. After only a momentary hesitation from people on both sides, people began rapidly to move freely in and out of the building. Ev-

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Forget What You Can’t Remember eryone seemed to have a place to be, a job to do, or at the very least a curiosity to see what there was to see, one way or another. In the natural, automatic flow and business of the two now-merged groups of people, there were two people who hadn’t moved - a man, and a woman. Paul walked directly toward the only other person who hadn’t suddenly been instilled with purpose and drive in the moment after the building had touched down and opened up. He stopped right in front of her, and for a long moment they were both still again, in a churning sea of human activity. He couldn’t tell whether she was looking through him or gazing deep into his eyes; her eyes seemed to be both far away and intensely present at the same time. In a span of time that may have been minutes or hours without either of them knowing or caring, the world at large and the trauma of recent events seemed to fade away and out of perception. His world began in the bottomless centers of her Lapis Lazuli eyes and extended no further than the windswept tresses of her crimson hair. Her world had collapsed still further, to encompass little more than his eyes and her heart and soul. “I’m Paul.” “Mary.” “We just need to find Peter, and we can go on tour...” “What?” “Never mind. We should get inside.” “Is Peter inside?” “No, I -- it was meant to be a joke. You know, Peter, Paul and Mary? They were a musical group?” “What?” “Just forget it. Look, we should get you inside, so I can get you into bed. Err. I mean, so I can get you into a bed. A bed.” “Bed?” “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I didn’t mean--” “A real bed?”

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Teel McClanahan III “Ye-yes. They’ve re-purposed the upper floors of the commerce center into living quarters. Beds, bathrooms, private showers, it’s very nice.” “I haven’t had a shower since...” “If you’ll just come with me, I can get you whatever you need. Shower, bed, a hot meal, it’s all inside.” She started toward the building without waiting for him to stop trying to convince her. Paul chased after her, sure he would be able to help her, somehow. Sure he didn’t want to lose her among the hundreds of others or -worsethe hundreds of thousands of Skythians.

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Chapter 9

“H

aven’t you already been through orientation?” Mary was doing much better after a long, hot shower, a good night’s sleep in a real bed, and an amazing breakfast. “Sure, but I’m only a few days ahead of you to Skythia, and there’s a lot to take in. I’m sure I could use a refresher.” “You sure it isn’t just an excuse to sit next to me for a few hours?” “Well... That might be a factor, sure, but is that really such a bad thing?” “If I said yes, your heart would probably break. How could I do such a thing after you’ve been so kind to me?” “I’ve had women do worse.” “I’ve done worse to other men, myself.” She paused for a long time, lost again in another one of those far away stares she still stumbled into every little while. Paul had decided not to interrupt these little lapses if he didn’t have to; she seemed to come out of them on her own before too long. He did wonder where she was wandering off to, mentally, that seemed so distant and disconnected from the here and now, and hoped that an explanation would come eventually. “But I’d never do something like that to you, Paul.” It was almost as though she were not aware she’d paused.

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “I’m glad to hear that. Hopefully I can continue to justify that opinion in the future.” “Just be yourself, Paul. You have nothing to worry about.” She smiled, and it was like a ray of warmth was cast over him. They walked down the stairs together to the lowest floor of the commerce center, where orientation was about to begin. The chairs were about half full when they arrived, but filling quickly. Mary steered them toward a couple of chairs at the edge, next to the windows. The view was spectacular. After the last of the survivors had been helped on board along with any supplies and weapons they didn’t feel comfortable parting with, and after the initial burst of activity and curiosity had been satiated, the commerce center had been closed and lifted again into the air. It was raised up to within the atmospheric damping field, but kept more than a kilometer away from the underside of the city. Skythia had then simply moved on from Denver, and was now crossing open country at its normal, gradual pace. Since the commerce center was relatively small in comparison with Skythia itself, the visual obstacle of the plane of ‘street level’ was significantly less of a factor, and from almost anywhere in the building one was afforded up to a two hundred and fifteen degree panoramic view of the world, from altitude. The floor, like nearly every surface of every interior of Skythia, was also a display and could be made effectively transparent - an effect which made most initiates deeply uncomfortable, and was not used during communal activities like meals and orientation. Mary was not among those who experienced discomfort at the stunning views, and even as the orientation began and most of the survivors of the zombie outbreak in Denver turned their attention forward, her eyes lingered on the horizon. “Welcome to Skythia,” the presenter began, “For those of you I haven’t yet had the pleasure of meeting, my name

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Teel McClanahan III is Marcy D’Agostino. Feel free to call me Marcy or Ms. D.” Mary might have been listening, or she might have been far away again, in her mind, but her eyes did not move from the window. “I’ll be going through most of your orientation, though we do have representatives from several key areas of city operation and government to give you a close look at how we function. The whole thing should only take a few hours, and then we’ll be serving lunch. First, I’d like to introduce Dr. James Te’ala, to explain a bit about the temporary quarantine. James?” The doctor who had headed up Skythia’s medical community in both official and unofficial capacities since it first took to the skies stood up and took Marcy’s place in front of the group. “Thanks, Marcy. I’ll try to be brief. As you know, you’re all under quarantine until we can be sure there’s no chance of spreading the zombie outbreak that affected Denver to the residents of Skythia. Based on the Sergeant’s intel, since none of you appear to have been bitten by a zombie and none are showing signs of putrefaction or impaired cognition, this should only end up being a simple formality. Zombieism spreads quickly, so if any of you were exposed, either without your awareness or which you have been concealing from us, you would be fully symptomatic within twenty-four hours of exposure and a confirmed zombie within thirty-six hours.” “Thirty-six at the very most,” said the Sergeant, gruffly. “It’s usually much faster.” “You’ve already been isolated here in the commerce center for about twelve hours, so we’ll know within a day whether we have a problem. Per Skythian regulation, we will all remain isolated another thirty-six hours after that, presuming no outbreak manifests. You can expect to see the city proper two nights from now.” There was a small amount of grumbling and whispering among the audience, but most of them already knew as much and had accepted it. Mary only blinked, noncommittally. “I’m sure an engineer will go

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Forget What You Can’t Remember over all the details with you later, but because it relates to the quarantine, I’ll go over the basics.” The window behind the doctor became opaque and showed a three-dimensional representation of Skythia, with a smaller object, barely visible, hanging below it on an invisible string. “The commerce center, here,” he indicated the smaller, dangling object, “is normally used when Skythia interacts with another community, typically for an exchange of goods, services, people and information. Official and unofficial meetings of all kinds take place in the upper floors, and most of the rooms you’re staying in have been converted from meeting rooms. This area,” as he had been speaking, the display had enlarged the image of the commerce center to fill the space, and had modified it from an exterior view of the layer-cake-like structure to a more useful cross-sectional view alongside four top-down maps of each level’s layout. He now indicated the map of the lowest level, “is generally used as a sort of pavilion or multi-purpose area. As we are doing now, it can be used for presentations to large groups, and when we are interacting commercially with another culture, this is the only level open to the general public. All meals will be served here for the duration of your quarantine, and there will be around-the-clock availability of medical staff here,” he indicated the location of the medical kiosk on the map, and then in the room behind them, “which is there.” A male nurse waved from the kiosk, and a few audience members waved back. Mary shifted slightly in her seat, looked briefly at the kiosk, and then back out the window again. “You’ve all been assigned sleeping quarters and been shown how to use the various facilities and amenities by now, I’m told, but if you have any questions, concerns, or any needs you feel are not being met, please do not hesitate to ask. We want to make you as comfortable as possible, within reason.” James looked over his notes to see if he’d missed anything and realized he’d somehow missed half the

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Teel McClanahan III explanation of the commerce center he’d meant to give, plus had failed to mention their clothes at all. “Let’s see, so,” he tapped a few things on his handheld, “the commerce center is designed to be lowered to other cities for commerce and meetings, and raised again on the woven nanotube cable it’s suspended from. Right now we’re still about a kilometer from the city, which is well within the atmospheric damping system but far enough that contamination is the most distant possibility. Any of you who may have worries about falling, please rest assured that the cable is made from the same material as the space elevator, and that the damping system keeps anything stronger than a light breeze from reaching us. Still, if any of you notices uncomfortable anxiety or even full-blown acrophobia, please make one of the medical staff aware of the situation and we’ll do what we can to help. “Finally, for those of you who haven’t had a chance to take advantage yet, we’ve got full fabrication services on board and would appreciate it if you could have some new clothes made up as soon as possible. The system has something approaching forty billion style and color combinations to choose from, so you should be able to find something that suits you. The clothes you came in with should be removed and incinerated at your earliest convenience. Fabrication and incineration facilities are on the second level, just to the left of the stairwell, here,” he indicated again on the display, as though they couldn’t have found it on their own, “which is down the hall from the elevators, here. Remember that this is about your safety and health, and that we will be checking everyone thoroughly before we release you to the city. I think that’s all for now. Marcy?” “Thanks, James. Next up, I’ll be going over a few details about surveillance and honesty here in Skythia, and then a Judicial representative will be coming up to give you a broader perspective on justice in Skythia.” The wall display changed immediately from a handful of maps to a mosaic of captured surveillance imagery. Mary looked at it for a while,

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Forget What You Can’t Remember lingering on an image for a few seconds here, watching people walk through a frame there, and then before Marcy even began her explanation, turned back to look out the window again. She was both present and distant at once. Paul kept a concerned eye on her. “This is the part of orientation we normally open with, as it’s somewhat of a difference to what people joining our community for the first time are used to. Statistically, thirty-seven percent of applicants and prospective citizens who end up leaving within the first month report that it relates to Skythia’s surveillance and honesty mandates. We understand that many of you will not be interested in joining Skythia, as your situation is unique, but for the duration of your stay with us, we would like you to be aware of the basics of our culture, community, and government, and that starts with this,” she waved her arm broadly at the constantly updating mosaic of videos behind her. Each of the images presented showed a different part of the city, some of them even showed the commerce center itself. Many of the views seemed to be static, as though recorded by a single video camera in the corner of a room, but then before long the viewpoint would shift. In some cases it was as though the camera had simply panned to follow the action, but others seemed also to have a free-moving camera like from an expensive, carefully choreographed crane shot in a movie. A few of the scenes seemed to be repeated over and over from different perspectives, as though shot by dozens of different cameras. One of them zoomed in close to catch the detail of what was being passed from hand to hand between two people, but the angle was impossible; the camera appeared to have taken the shot right through one of the parties involved. Marcy explained, “Everything that happens in Skythia is recorded. Around the clock, everywhere, and the recordings are stored permanently. Computers track time and location, and identify everyone present and they record it along

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Teel McClanahan III with general metadata about what is happening. There is not a single location in Skythia which is out of sight of our surveillance system, public or private. The system cannot be tampered with or avoided, and there is a radically redundant backup system in place in case of any unexpected technical problems. The system is immune to power loss in anything short of the sun burning out and staying out for several months, but if that happens we think surveillance will be the least of our worries. The system records everything in such a way that shots can be produced from any conceivable angle, and virtual cameras can be flown through recorded events with precision and ease. Imagine a fully dimensional audio and video recording of every square inch inside the bubble of the damping system the Dr. showed you, and you’re beginning to get the idea.” When the display changed so that each of the images of the mosaic became a continuous stream following a single survivor around the commerce center from room to room, up and down stairs, all in a seamless, unbroken shot, many members of the audience gasped. Mary didn’t even turn to see that one of the shots seemed to have followed her around more closely than Paul had, without anyone ever becoming aware of their having been recorded. The video Paul watched unblinking, face-on as Mary walked around the public areas of the building, would have required a camera man to walk backward in front of her, practically in her face the entire time, without stumbling or even shaking a conventional camera. “Any recording of anything in any public space is public domain. You can pull up the footage from any console, terminal or handheld by specifying time, location, event, or even just a person’s name and the time or location you want to see. For example, here are videos,” she hit the button for the pre-set query she’d made and the videos changed again, “of every time Dr. Te’ala visited the cafe across from his office in the last three months, arranged by the color of

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Forget What You Can’t Remember his tie.” The videos did, indeed, show what she described, showing dozens of otherwise identical and boring videos of the Dr. sipping a cup of tea and reading something from a handheld, but with a gradual progression in tie color from one end of the rainbow to the other. “On the other hand, recordings of private spaces need to meet one of three general requirements to be accessed, each of which Justice Blank will be going over with you in detail a little later on. First, if there is no one present in a private space, it is public domain. Second, if it is required as evidence in a court proceeding, it is available to the court. Third, with the consent of any one or more persons present during the recording, any private recording can be accessed. This last one is what a lot of new residents have trouble getting used to, even though it is already familiar to you in another form: Anyone present during an event can choose to act as a witness to that event, telling others about what happened there. Unfortunately, human perception and human memory are imperfect systems, and do not hold up well under stress. Conceptually, accessing a verifiable recording of an event that a witness has agreed to share is -for privacy purposes- the same as their recounting the event, while -for accuracy- the recording is much more reliable.” Marcy paused for breath, and to let what she was telling them sink in. “As an example, think about a time you’ve been telling someone a funny story about something that happened to you, and you get to that inevitable point in your description of ‘you should’ve seen it,’ or ‘you had to be there.’ In Skythia, when you get to that part, you can just pull it up and show them. Better than that, if you take a little time to plan ahead, you can customize the virtual camera work to give your anecdote just that little extra dramatic flair and a cinematic feel. On the other hand, unless a crime was committed, you don’t have to worry about just anyone watching what goes on in the privacy of your home. Since some-

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Teel McClanahan III one who was present at the time needs to consent before a recording can be viewed, there’s no fear of a stalker or a peeping tom getting access to your most intimate moments. Those moments will always be there for you to look back on, never for anyone you don’t choose. Better yet, you never need to carry a camera again -unless you like to- since any image that exists in the system and that you have access to can be made into a physical print at the touch of a button. “Then, in the event of memories of a less pleasant nature, when a crime is committed, you can rest assured that is has been captured and recorded. Justice in Skythia, to put it briefly where Mr. Blank will expound for you at length, is mostly about determining factually what happened and, when a crime is proven, rehabilitating or punishing the criminals involved. We’re proud, as a community, not just that the mere knowledge of continuous surveillance seems to keep crime rates almost impossibly low, but also that our rehabilitation program has shown such a high rate of success. To date, we have not yet had a single adult repeat offender, and very few persons remitted into formal custody. As you will learn more about, Skythia does not have a formal prison facility; we contract with other governments to incarcerate anyone who either refuses or fails to respond to rehabilitation. “To sum up, everything you do here is recorded, you can’t get away with crime, and dishonesty doesn’t pay since we can easily verify any word you speak and any action you take. Now, as promised, is Justice Julian Blank to give you a detailed overview of the judicial arm of the Skythian government. Mr. Blank?” As the short, bald man took Marcy’s place at the front of the group, Paul noticed a single line of moisture marking out a path from Mary’s eye to her chin. “I wish I knew how to comfort you,” he thought to himself, feeling helplessly overwhelmed by her tears.

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Chapter 10

T

he foot path that traced its way around the entire circumference of the city was a nearly thirty-two kilometer circuit, but Paul didn’t mind walking the entire course that day because Mary was holding his hand. She’d said she liked the view and wanted to go for a walk around the city’s edge. Paul hadn’t realized at first she’d meant to walk all day. Mary used so few words, still, and Paul wasn’t yet used to their often literal and unexpected implications. “Walk around the city’s edge” meant just that to her; not a stroll along the edge for half an hour, but a day-long hike around the entirety of Skythia. Paul had insisted, an hour or two after midday, that they stop for lunch - if he hadn’t, he probably would have fainted before they reached their starting point. Mary didn’t seem tired at all, and barely touched her chef salad before they started out again. It was like she wasn’t held back by the physical needs and limitations that seemed so pressing to Paul. Like her body was there with him but Mary herself was far away. They’d hardly spoken a word before and during lunch, and not long after, they were back up to pace, strolling widdershins the city, he tried to get Mary to talk. “Mary?”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “What?” She didn’t turn her head away from the vastness to their right when she spoke, and her voice was nearly carried away, nearly silent. “I was wondering, I mean, if you don’t mind...” He seemed to want to wait for a response from her, but none was forthcoming. She just continued her steady pace, continued gazing off into the distance, “I was hoping we could talk.” “Talk?” “About what’s on your mind, all the time.” He didn’t want to push too hard, but in the ten days since they’d first met they’d spent most of every day together and she’d hardly said more than a handful of words about herself. “Or about what you’re looking for, out there in the distance. You look so far away.” Mary didn’t respond immediately. Her pace didn’t change, and she didn’t turn her head to face him. Paul was patient. He hoped she was thinking about it, readying a response, and he walked alongside her, held her hand, and waited. After the first several hours, Paul’s sense of the distance they travelled and of time passing had fallen by the wayside. By the time her voice reached his ears again he didn’t know whether it had taken her words a minute or a mile to form in her mouth, and it only seemed to matter that she was still at least somewhat with him. “Things are so different, now.” Paul hoped she would continue, didn’t speak. Now that she’d begun, the waiting was even easier. They walked on. “It’s like everything before was a dream. Like a nightmare, compared to this. Not just the zombies, but moreso everything that led up to that. The week in Denver, and the one before that, in training - at least that’s clear in my mind.” She brushed aside a lock of hair that had blown across her face. She closed her eyes, not losing pace or missing a step. “The rest is faded, details missing, like a dream lost on waking. Like I was asleep until a couple of weeks ago. I can’t

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Teel McClanahan III quite remember what it was like, I just know it wasn’t like this. It wasn’t good.” She was looking outward again, as though from this height she could see beyond the horizon. Paul let her take her time, and was glad he’d found the right time to try to get her started. “All the details are gone, but I don’t miss them. The name of the city where I was born... It’s...” There was a look on her face that spoke at once of mental effort and of disconnection. She was trying, and she also didn’t seem to care whether she came up with the information. “I can’t remember it. I can’t remember where I was born or where I grew up, and somehow, that’s okay. I know I went to school, I know I had a job, but what I studied and what I did are just as faded from my memory as the names of either school or employer. There’s so much like that, so many things I can’t quite recall, and the further we go, the less detail I find.” Paul had some ideas about what might have affected her memory, about how the event he’d come to Skythia to avoid might be the cause for not just her memory loss, but for the literal loss from the world of the things she couldn’t remember. He knew that there was a good chance that the place of her birth had never existed in the world they both now lived in. Paul had a few mental lapses of his own to face, but just as she was saying, as time passed they became more like a faded dream and less like a lost history. Paul judged that now was not the time to try to explain it to her, so he simply squeezed Mary’s hand in encouragement and hoped she wouldn’t go back to being bottled up and silent after their walk that day. “It doesn’t bother me, though,” she said matter-offactly after a modest pause. “The things I can’t remember. What bothers me is how different everything seems now. Even without being able to pin down the specifics of what my life was like before, I know how it felt. I know, I feel, deep down, that if that was a dream then it’s a really good thing that I woke up. I don’t know how it could have been

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Forget What You Can’t Remember so bad, but I started feeling that way back in Denver; that the danger and horror and the blood and that unrelenting stench of death was infinitely better than my life before.” Then she looked Paul directly in the eyes. Not looking through him or past him as she’d done so often before, but right at him. “That you’ve already been better to me and for me than the men I was with before, none of whose names or faces I can remember, but who certainly had an impact on me anyway. The way they treated me...” She shook her head, as though to rid it of the contamination of thoughts about them, and her gaze drifted back out to the spectacularly unencumbered view of the landscape below. “I think not being able to remember is for the best, but there’s also this nagging feeling that this,” she squeezed his hand, “that you, are too good to be true. I lay down every night wondering if I’ll wake up back in the dream or nightmare or whatever that other life was. I wake up every morning with a mixed feeling of joy and disbelief. How long can it last, this utopian experience? How long until it either turns bad or I accept it, and which will it be?” “I think you know what I’m hoping for.” He hoped his speaking wouldn’t break the spell, wouldn’t end the magic of hearing her really saying something worthwhile for the first time. “I can’t read your mind, Paul, and I know you can’t read mine. You don’t know anything about me you couldn’t tell by looking at me, and most of what I know about you is about how you’ve tried so hard to take care of me. I know I shouldn’t hold either of those things against you. I’ve certainly needed a little taking care of, a little hand-holding these last couple of weeks. There was a guy, back in Denver who tried to help me out, but he wasn’t like you, Paul. He didn’t have selfless intentions, he didn’t even fake it very well. You actually seem to want to help. Not because you think you’ll get something out of it, but because you want me to get something out of it.”

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Teel McClanahan III Paul nodded, but was humble enough not to relish or want to reinforce the praise. Mostly he wanted to go on listening. “As far as getting to know me better goes, I guess the idea of that standard doesn’t hold up very well when I can’t remember much of my life before a few weeks ago. If you knew me well enough that it seemed okay for you to care as much about me as you seem to, you’d have to know me a lot better than I know myself.” Even as she paused in her speech to consider the matter, her pace of forward motion around the perimeter walking path was as constant as the tug of gravity or Paul’s gentle grip on her hand. “Although I think I do know myself, in the ways that are most important. I know how I feel, what I like, what I don’t. My heart is still my heart, even if I can’t name the last city I lived in or the name of my favorite band. My soul is still my soul, full of hopes and dreams and passion and fears. And maybe the Mary you know is more easily known because she’s more purely herself. Because I’m unencumbered by all the layer upon layer of fact, detail, nuance and idiosyncrasy that gets built up on a person just by living. Maybe getting to know me by looking deep into my eyes and discovering the rest along with me is better than the normal routine. I mean, look at the Sergeant and Lorraine. When she met him, her whole world was changed by it. She practically became a new woman, overnight. And she tells me it was the same for him. With me, my world was changed overnight, and I can’t help but be different from the person I can’t remember being - and then I met you. Maybe it’s better to face the future together than alone.” Paul wanted to agree with her. Deep in his gut, in that place where his most trusted and accurate intuition came from, Paul was sure that being with Mary was what he was supposed to do. It was his mind, his intellect, his pessimism that began to cast doubts on the entire situation. Was it really better for her to try to create a new life while involved

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Forget What You Can’t Remember with someone else, or would his own thoughts, dreams and expectations color her growth or worse - mold her into the image of the woman she thought he wanted her to be? She seemed really confident of who she was as a person, if not in the memories of her life before a doomsday she knew nothing about. Paul wasn’t sure that confidence would be enough. Paul, who had spent the last couple of decades worrying about a cataclysmic event that had only recently slipped into the past found himself slipping back into the familiar role of worrier. “What do you think, Paul?” “I’m worried. An hour ago, I wasn’t, and I don’t think I have a good reason to be, but I’m worried.” “What about?” Now she was looking at him, and for the first time since he’d laid eyes on her, she seemed totally present. The look on her face wasn’t quite fear or worry, but it seemed to speak volumes of genuine concern. “Us. Is this a good idea? I guess I hadn’t really thought about it too much, I’d only followed my heart. My heart told me to grab on to you and never let go, and things have been so strange lately, not just for you but for all of us, that I didn’t question it. My intuition just saved my life, a few days before I met you. I should trust it more. But while you were talking, I couldn’t help but start thinking. I couldn’t help but wonder if you weren’t going to just fall back into whatever habits and preferences led your old life to turn into a nightmare. To wonder if maybe without knowing it I’m the sort of guy you were with before, if maybe I’m going to do everything I can, everything I think is good and right for you and for us and still be the one to make your life bad again. I’ve somewhat forced myself onto you when you were vulnerable, haven’t I? Does that make me the bad guy? I don’t want to make you fail to achieve the beautiful potential you see for your life, here. I don’t want to be the thing you see when you wake up in the morning, some day down the line, that tells you you’ve found yourself back in the nightmare.”

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Teel McClanahan III “I didn’t mean to...” She stammered. She nearly lost her footing, and her pace was thrown off. “I don’t think you’re one of the bad guys, Paul, and I don’t think you’d let me do anything but live the best life there is for me. You’re so cautious, so methodical, so caring, I’m sure you’d step aside before letting yourself turn my life into a nightmare. But I think you’re stepping aside too soon. You haven’t even given yourself a chance, yet. Don’t give up without even trying.” “This is such a critical time, though. You have the world at your fingertips. You could go anywhere, be anything, and I don’t want you to pass on some golden opportunity because it doesn’t suit me, or because I didn’t think it was a good idea. I’ve seen it too many times that people get trapped because of the people they’re with. I care too much about you to want myself to become a trap.” “And I don’t want to be trapped by you. But we’ve got to at least give this a shot. My intuition is telling me the same things about you as yours seems to be saying about me. Maybe whatever force that wiped out my life and memories put me in your path, and you in mine. Can’t we just agree that we’ll both try to be aware of whether we feel held back or restricted, and let each other know? As worried as you are about the possibility of it now, when we’ve hardly done more than hold hands and eat meals together, you’ll probably end up over-protecting my individuality.” “Which could be a problem, too. What if I over-think everything, as I so often do, and I try so hard to keep you from being influenced by me that you never grow close to me? Would I be able to see that I was sabotaging the possibility of an ‘us’ or would I merely push you away by trying to protect you from me?” Paul’s mind was racing with all the different possibilities for things to go wrong. “Just relax, Paul. Try to take things as they come. One day, one hour, one minute at a time. Be yourself, trust your intuition, try not to worry about it. This is a beautiful, amaz-

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Forget What You Can’t Remember ing, mind-bending place, and we can have a bright future in it, if you just give us a chance.” He nodded, and tried to let the beauty and happiness of just walking by her side sink in and push out the wave after wave of worrying thought cascading out from the depths of his mind.

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Chapter 11

“I

don’t think I can stay here, Lorraine.” The Sergeant’s hand gently caressed the smooth slope of her hip as they spoke, taking a breather from yet another marathon lovemaking session. “Having this much free time seems nice, but politically, I don’t think I belong in this community. There’s no morality here, no limits. People are able to do whatever they want, willy-nilly.” “That’s not entirely true. They have laws, and a rigorous and well-regulated judicial system to enforce those laws. Plus, with the mandatory matter of civil service, those laws can’t help but reflect the community’s morals.” “But that’s just it, they don’t seem to have any morals. Their laws basically come down to ‘do whatever you want as long as it doesn’t impede anyone else from doing what they want.’ That’s not morality, it’s the opposite.” “It’s just not your morality, Sarge. It’s not based directly on any particular religious text or on the accumulated legalistic implementations of thousands of special-interest-groups’ private views on what’s important. It’s a humanistic, almost Libertarian morality that focuses on what’s important to each person living here and on what can actually be proven rather than on thought crimes and victimless crime.”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “Which makes not a whole heckuva lot of sense in the first place. How can your morality be based in Libertarianism when there’s no private ownership in Skythia? The central ideal of Libertarianism is that I should be free to do what I want with my property and on my property, but in Skythia no one owns property.” “Well, it isn’t actually Libertarian, I was just comparing it, because the ideal is very similar - you can do what you want here, as long as it doesn’t infringe on other people’s right to do what they want.” “But if no one owns anything, what’s to stop someone from just stealing what’s mine and using it for their own purposes? It’s all community property, right?” “No, it isn’t anyone’s property. Not you, not me, not this supposed thief, and not the community or the government. No ownership at all. But if someone wants what you have, they certainly don’t have to take it from you. They can fabricate their own.” “What about location? That’s a different sort of property, and you can’t fabricate a location.” “No, and although no one is said to ‘own’ any particular location in Skythia, there are laws governing it. It’s mostly down to who was there first. If you ask to use a particular space that isn’t currently being used, it’s yours, pretty much as long as you want to keep using it. They went through all this in the orientation, and then again when we were supposed to start shopping for a place to live. Did you just block it all out, or are you being intentionally difficult?” “I heard it, it just doesn’t make sense. How is that not ownership? And yes, I know, anyone can petition to use the location for a different purpose, but if that’s the case, how is it mine? How is anyone supposed to be able to operate, living in constant fear that someone else will come along and take their home or their business away?” “It’s not that simple, and you know it. Everything goes to a vote. The procedure is straightforward enough, but

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Teel McClanahan III not such that everyone just takes each other’s places all the time. First you have to ask the person who currently has seniority for the property if they’d willingly vacate, and if they don’t then you have to submit a proposal for a city-wide vote explaining why that particular location is better suited to your use and why other locations wouldn’t work. Fifty percent of voters have to agree, and failed proposals don’t look good on your record.” Lorraine had now rolled over, away from his touch and to face him while they spoke. “Not to mention that you’re still thinking from an ownership perspective. The whole system is set up based on the idea that everyone is working together to be the best and do the best and create the best possible city, community, ideas and projects they can. It isn’t about what’s mine or about trying to run a business to generate personal profits, it’s about trying to generate wealth for the community and wealth for the world at large. What are you going to do with this space that contributes more to the community than what someone else would do there, and why does it need to be there rather than someplace else? Not from selfish, personal motives, and certainly not just to try to take away from someone else.” “That can’t work. People are inherently selfish. Greed doesn’t cease to exist because you live in a flying city. And greed isn’t rational. Sometimes you want what someone else has not because you have any use for it but just so the other person doesn’t have it.” “And that’s the sort of attitude that wouldn’t fly here. Not only is everything put to a vote of the entire citizenry, but if you showed a pattern of selfishness that didn’t support the community directly, you’d be asked to leave and possibly have your citizenship recalled.” “So what I’m saying, Lorraine, is that instead of waiting for them to kick me out, I’d be better off leaving town as soon as we get somewhere more hospitable. Somewhere where watching out for number one isn’t a crime.”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “Wanting to want the best for yourself isn't a crime, Sarge. It’s just not okay to be selfish at the expense of others. The point of the system, which they went over several times, is that by enriching the community you enrich your own life as a member of the community. Your working hard, and having that work not be limited to benefitting one person but allowed to benefit all, improves people’s lives. Wealth isn’t a zero-sum game, where for one person’s wealth to increase another's needs to be diminished; if we all agree to share, which is one of the foundational principles of Skythia, then whenever anyone’s wealth increases, everyone’s wealth increases. Better living conditions, better tools, better communication, better entertainment, better and better all the time.” “I see they’ve got you fully brainwashed. Am I going to have to give you up to get out of this commie pinkhole? It can’t work. It’s never worked before, and it’s bound to collapse sooner or later. I’d just rather get out sooner rather than later.” “Why do you think it’s bound to fail? It isn’t like anything that’s come before it, so comparisons with other cultures aren’t really valid. Logically, how could it fail?” “It’s got the same problems any other communist state ever had; if one person doesn’t pull their weight, everyone else has to work harder to make up for it. And there’s no motivation to pull your weight, since you know your needs will be met whether you work hard or not. Why would anyone work, if they get the same as everyone else whether they do or not? What’s the incentive?” “First of all, they’re already way past subsistence living, here. The first generation of tech that came out of the first people here, the people who built this place, has already seen to that. Hyper-effecient solar collection on most exterior surfaces provides enough energy that the entire city’s needs will be met until the sun goes out. If the robots stopped tending the hydroponics for some reason, there’d still be

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Teel McClanahan III enough food created simply by keeping the city’s travel to within range of ley lines to produce food magically. Everything else anyone could want is built by the fabrication plants. If everyone in Skythia stopped working tomorrow, except if some sort of catastrophe destroyed every single robot capable of repairing another robot, the sun went out, and/or the ley lines suddenly didn’t radiate unlimited magical potential, everyone’s basic needs would still be met. And most of their wants, too. Some things might take a little longer than we’d like, be a little less nice, less orderly, but food, clothes, shelter, the basics would keep flowing. “Second, the civic duties of every citizen require pretty constant engagement. You can’t not pull your weight for long. Even after reaching full citizenship status, the average citizen is employed about two years out of every four in some sort of government position. Either by appointment, election, or compulsion, everyone gets placed. If you refuse to work it’s a pretty quick vote that revokes your citizenship. The fact that the only government jobs that require more than twenty-five or thirty hours a week are elected positions like Mayor is intentional - no one wants their time to be monopolized, and if everyone is free to use the rest of their time how they please, most everything can get done with a minimum of man-hours. So, for less than ten percent of your time, over the years, you’re required to ‘pull your weight’ to retain citizenship. You can do more if you want, but that’s the minimum. And then, with the rest of your time, you can do whatever you want. That’s the whole idea. Sit around the house watching pornographic holo-vids and masturbating if that’s what you like. Go to school to learn new ideas or a new trade. Start a development project to build a new ...whatever you dream of. Make art, make holo-vids, design new buildings, create games, anything. You could spend your free ninety percent designing new weapons to kill zombies with and writing guides for zombie survival and making love to me, if you wanted. And you want to leave?”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “Yeah, well... I just don’t see how it could work, in the long run. On the other hand, I’m not sure how my life would work, without you. So I’ll stay. For now. I’ll take the civics classes, see if I can get their brainwashing to take, for you. I suppose it doesn’t really matter whether they’ll wither and die or, as I lived with predicting for so long, be consumed by zombies - I can live in a society I know can’t survive. I know how to survive, and I know it’s not worth giving you up to know I’m right, or to stand on that righteousness.” “And maybe if you live here long enough and really see it working you’ll come to realize you weren’t right, after all.” “Maybe. And maybe it’ll all come crashing down around us and I’ll have to be the one to lead the survivors to safety again. We’ll have to wait and see.”

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Chapter 12, Part 1

“W

asn’t the point of putting a utopian society into a science fiction story to show how utopia isn’t possible,” asked Brady, as he and Lance hovered at the back of the group. “To point out how human nature, greed or corruption or whatever would make it impossible?” “This isn’t some story, Brady,” Lance was trying to keep his voice down. “We’re in a real place. We’re not on a walking tour of the pages of a book, we’re on a walking tour of a flying city.” “A utopian flying city. They claim to be beyond scarcity, beyond the need for money, and to have likewise created a society without normal conflicts and crimes. You went through the same orientation I did, and we’ve been attending the same civics classes together, I know it hasn’t escaped your attention that there’s got to be something wrong with this place.” “I don’t know how it’s escaped your attention that there isn’t anything wrong here. Functioning judicial system, with actual rehabilitation for criminals so they can rejoin society more functionally and less disruptively. Comprehensible legislature, where the laws are not only possible for everyone to understand but required reading to maintain citizenship. Not to mention that everyone takes an active role in mak-

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Forget What You Can’t Remember ing sure that everything they do is in their best interest as a community.” “I can’t believe it. No one would put up with it. It must be staged or faked, something.” Brady made a concerned face that Lance didn’t look at and shook his head. Lance’s attention was split between his conversation with Brady and the mind-bending architecture and functionality of Skythia, further revealed to them by their friendly tour guide. “Voting, sometimes three times a day, on every little thing? You’ve got to be kidding me!” “Sometimes upwards of a dozen times in a single day, depending on the season, though most of it’s simple enough stuff. You used to make more serious decisions about the hundreds of emails you got during the day back at your old job. Realistically, most votes come down to little more than a sort of urgent, official email with a quick online poll attached for the average citizen on the average vote. It just becomes a regular part of everyday life to remain an active citizen, involved in the day-to-day operations of your government.” “I know how it works, and you know that’s not what I meant!” A few people near them in the tour group made shushing noises, and others just turned and gave disapproving looks. Brady lowered his voice a notch. “That’s not what I meant, Lance. I meant that it’s all too perfect. Like the whole society is a show being put on for our benefit, and there’s some nefarious underbelly they don’t want us to see. Or worse, they don’t know it can’t really work, and their naïveté is going to end up putting the city into an inescapable death spiral - maybe even literally.” “You’re looking for problems where they don’t exist.” “I didn’t look for problems with the zombie survival training simulation before we went, and it turned out they were a vast conspiracy hiding the existence of real zombies from the general public. Maybe if someone had looked a little closer, Denver might not have been destroyed. Maybe

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Teel McClanahan III if someone had been looking for problems where none appeared to exist, a million lives would have been spared.” “That’s not nearly the same situation. The Skythian government -which is to say, the people of Skythia- isn’t hiding some vast conspiracy about oppressed wil’o’wisps forced to keep the city aloft, or enslaved children of minority species being forced to live their lives inside the fabricators, making the means of our luxurious lives with their tiny, tearstained fingers.” “How do you know? What makes you so sure?” Lance gave Brady a hard look, like he was looking at a total nut job. “We toured both the levitation underworks and the engineering facility where they repair and upgrade the fabricators. This week. You saw the vast inertial lenses and the gravity drives with your own eyes. We both did. That’s what makes me so sure. And now I’m on a tour of the city which, as we both can see, has nearly every major exterior surface covered in solar collection arrays. Yes, they’re apparently more than an order of magnitude more efficient than the best ones on the market back home, but they’re still how Skythia has enough energy to give every resident a life of luxury.” “You don’t actually believe that part, do you? There must be someone around here who doesn’t have it as good as the rich majority. Someone who wants more, or feels like they’re getting the short shrift.” “Well, if they feel that way, all they have to do it get up and do something about it. There’s no rich or poor here, because no one owns anything. If you want something, if you want more, you can either just go out and have it fabricated or if it’s something no one has ever thought of before, you can use whatever resources you want to create it. As long as doing so doesn’t infringe on anyone else’s rights, no one will say a word. This goes for every person in Skythia, from new residents like you and me to full citizens.” “Not everyone. What about criminals?”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “Yes, even criminals. Depending on the severity of their crimes they may have someone assigned to monitor them, but unless they try to commit another crime or unless their actions are determined to be counter to their healthy rehabilitation, they have just about the same free reign as anyone.” “Well...” Brady was thinking hard now, not really taking in the building towering impossibly over him in such a way that to look straight up was to see the optical illusion of a statuesque woman in silhouette, but from other perspectives in town it and nearby buildings merely appeared to curve in strange and interesting places along their ascents. “Well, what about the robots? They don’t have rights, do they?” “Now that’s an interesting question, and something that occurred to me almost as soon as I heard they had intelligent, autonomous robots, here. I looked that up on my own, and read all about the robots situation in Skythia.” “You... You looked it up on your own?” Brady had thought he would have stumped Lance with that one; they wouldn’t be getting to robots in their civics course for another week or two. “Yeah. It fascinates me. I’m a big fan of Asimov’s examinations of the possible repercussions of the introduction of robots in society, plus I wanted to know if they were using some version of the Three Laws. It turns out they are. So you’re pretty safe from a robot uprising, in a direct threat way, but more than that, robots can be granted a special provisional citizenship status. Any robot or artificial intelligence in Skythia that petitions for it and passes a basic test similar to the one we’ll get at the end of our civics course is granted provisional citizenship. It’s somewhere between being just a resident, like we are, and acting citizenship, which we get while doing our civil service requirements. They can even vote, and all their votes are recorded -though not counted toward outcomes directly- and made public. They can peti-

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Teel McClanahan III tion the government, they can submit suggestions for new laws or revisions to existing laws, same as any acting or full citizen. When they reach end-of-life, or are made obsolete by a newer model, or if they petition successfully, they can choose what happens to them, as citizens.” “So, wait,” Brady interrupted, “if the AI keeping the city level and in the air petitions the government, it could just up and leave its job? What would happen to the city then?” “Well, in order for that particular AI to have such a petition succeed, it would need to show that its function would go on being fulfilled after it left. Either that it had programmed a replacement, or that it was making a copy of itself and it and its copy would take shifts at work and off work, or that it had created a new technology for keeping the city up that didn’t require around the clock monitoring by an advanced AI. Otherwise the vote would never pass.” “Oh.” “That actually happened, in a way, with the first generation of incinerators. There used to be an individual AI in control of each plasma incinerator, and only certain goods could be accepted, and only a certain capacity... Anyway, the AIs got their citizenship, and then began working in their off hours on improving themselves. Reducing the amount of work they had to do to get the same amount done at first, on a computational basis, then putting those extra cycles to use enhancing incineration, and now the entire system of incinerators is networked, controlled by a single intelligence -they take turns- and can handle anything you could want to destroy, while outputting both net positive energy and your choice of over a dozen elemental gasses. It took them a while, and there was some political resistance at first, but now most of the original incinerators’ AIs are either retired or doing amazing performance art with controlled streams of plasma and flames. I went to one of their shows last Tuesday when you wanted to stay in.”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “So you’re saying that not even the robots are oppressed.” “Right. They don’t have the full rights and freedoms of humans, but, depending on their physical capabilities, it can come pretty close. Theoretically, if someone built a robot and designed an AI without any intentions of putting it in a serving role, it could gain citizenship and full freedom immediately, and live almost the same sort of life as you and I do.” “Except its votes wouldn’t count.” “Not as such, though if it were motivated to, and intelligent enough, it could get special dispensation to serve in any of the major branches of Skythian government. If properly qualified, a robot might serve as a judge or a legislator or even as mayor. In the same way, it would have protected rights, and if you thought a particular robot or AI was not contributing to Skythia or was doing harm, it would have to go through the normal petition and a full citizens’ vote before it could be expelled from the city.” “I don’t know whether to feel vindicated in that we found a class of people within Skythia who don’t have full rights, or frightened that robots might displace humans entirely.” “Neither is really a concern here, especially the humans part. There are more elves now living in Skythia than post-service robots and other digital life forms, and if you count all the other minority species residents and citizens together, they make up more than the elves and robots combined. Weren’t you paying attention when they went over demographics?” “I haven’t seen any...” and then Brady noticed, as though he hadn’t looked at her once since the tour had started nearly an hour earlier, that the tour guide had blue skin, pointed ears, and a bald head. She was a Kwytzwik. She was even wearing the traditional Cha’shyk Rěal around her torso, even though the Ka Kwytź had declared it was no longer necessary

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Teel McClanahan III to wear outside of Temple. Why hadn’t he noticed sooner? “Uhh... Never mind.” He didn’t want to say any more, suddenly noticing elves, wisps, and other species all around. “You’ve really got to start paying more attention to the world outside your own thoughts, Brady. You haven’t seen any minority species? What’s wrong with you?” “I have no idea.” “Are you going to have your eyes open now? Should we take the tour over again? They’re about to leave.” “Wait, how did we get back here?” “Maybe the tour should wait for another day. You walked there and back again without even realizing it. Let me know when you’re done fantasizing your doom and gloom theories about Skythia, and we’ll take a couple of tours where you’ll be able to see how beautiful it is for the first time.” “I really have no idea how I missed the entire tour. Or the non-human residents. Have I been asleep this entire time?” “It’s been almost three weeks since we got off that dangling commerce center, Brady. You’d better be pretty well rested if you’ve been sleeping the entire time. I know that surviving Denver was pretty tough. Tough on all of us. But if you’re still this out of it, maybe you should look into seeing someone.” “Seeing someone?” “Like a counselor. Or a psychiatrist. I hear there are some really good ones living here. Some of the people we rescued from Denver were practically catatonic before, and are already better off than you seem to be. Well, at least from what I’ve heard. They aren’t suffering paranoid delusions about arch conspiracies, anyway.” “I don’t feel crazy. I just...” Brady’s voice trailed off. Lance let him be quiet, tried not to visibly notice the tears beginning to well up in his friend’s eyes. Brady sniffled a bit. “Sometimes it feels like I must have died back there. That the zombies must have got me, or maybe something worse

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Forget What You Can’t Remember happened, but all of this,” he gestured around at the foreign architecture and the elves and the Kwytzwik tour guide and all of it, “it’s just so different. So perfect, but also so much like a messed up dream. You’re telling me this place is perfect, a utopia, even for robots and minorities, and that we’re allowed to be a part of it. No admission fee, no qualifications, they give you free classes to teach you how to pass the easy entrance exam, and then they're just ‘Here you are, welcome to paradise,’ and it feels wrong. Like I don’t deserve it. Or like this is Heaven and we’re dead. Or... I don’t know. Maybe I do need counseling.” “At the very least, you need someone to talk to. I know this is the first you’ve mentioned any of this to me, so maybe I’m not the best choice, but if you don’t find a counselor, please at least find a sympathetic ear.”

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Chapter 12, Part 2

“I

t isn’t you, Paul.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He hoped it wasn’t as bad as it seemed, as bad as the clichéd statement tended to end up meaning. “Things have been going so well. Or I thought they were,” his fears and doubts now creeping deeper, from his voice down into his gut. “What’s wrong, Mary? What did I do?” “I told you, it isn’t you. It isn’t something you’ve done. I just need more space, right now, more time alone. It isn’t the end of the world, Paul. It isn’t even the end of us, of what we have together. All I’m saying is I think we should each have our own places, right now.” Mary did her best to sound reassuring, and never broke physical contact with him. A light touch to the elbow, a squeeze of the hand, letting him know she wasn’t letting go. “We could probably find places in the same neighborhood, or the same building, if you want, but something about living on my own in the temporary quarters they assigned just feels right for me, right now.” “You don’t like spending time with me? You’re distancing yourself from me, what is this, Mary?” Paul was only marginally aware of how lonely and desperate he sounded.

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Forget What You Can’t Remember How helpless he had become since the primary focus of so much of his life had come and gone, and with it much of his drive, focus, and self-confidence. “I do like spending time with you, Paul. I still want to see you most every day. I still want to be near you. I’m not leaving Skythia, and it’s not exactly a huge place.” Mary wasn’t sure she would be able to find the right words to calm him down. He had been getting more and more clingy as time had passed, which she didn’t mind, but it seemed to parallel a descent into emotional instability. “We’re still in the same civics classes, and I’m still planning to apprentice for the legislature as soon as we finish that, so we’ll both be working at the same place for a while, too.” Paul couldn’t help himself from hearing everything as being worse than it was. She was speaking calmly, reassuringly, and saying all the right things, but it sounded like the end for him, it sounded like the first step on the road to their separation, it sounded like she was telling him he was a horrible person she couldn’t stand to be with. Her words simply didn’t enter his mind with the meaning she intended, through no fault of her own. “I can’t...” Paul was having trouble finding air to breathe. “You...” The walls felt to him like they were drawing nearer and nearer and spinning around him even as they crushed down on him. “We...” Paul caved in on himself, slumped down, passed out before he could form a complete sentence, and would have slipped right out of his seat and onto the floor if Mary hadn’t been there holding on to him. “Help!” She cried out, hoping the emergency monitoring systems she’d been told about were as steadfast and persistent as she’d been informed. “We need a doctor! Someone help, I think--” Her words were interrupted by the sound of the door chimes. Mary signalled the door to open. “Thank you, Miss, let me just ease him onto this stretcher,” the medical team had been at her door before she’d finished asking for help, and was at Paul’s side in barely

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Teel McClanahan III another instant. There were three of them, two medibots that appeared to be more like augmented humans than humanoid robots, and the one who had spoken. She was tall, sleight of frame, pale skinned and fast without seeming rushed. She didn’t look like the average elven resident of Skythia, though. Perhaps it was the stark white of her uniform creating a strange contrast, but Mary thought her skin had a touch of color to it she couldn’t quite place, somewhere between the faint pale blue of the sky and the deceptive green tinge of the sea. Mary was aware that Skythia was a fully multicultural city, but had been fairly insulated from non-humans in her time there. It didn’t help that seeing this strange doctor swoop into her home only to suddenly behave so intimately toward her partner brought up the strong sensation of a surfacing memory and then the strange yet increasingly familiar mental queasiness of not being able to recall her own past, all while in the midst of an uncertain present moment. Lost in the labyrinth of her own mind’s attempts to associate with and resurrect what it was unable to deliver to her, Mary missed part of the doctor’s ongoing chatter. “...vital signs automatically alerted us, so that as soon as his panic attack had begun we were on our way. According to these readouts, it appears his heart rate is already stabilizing and his ventilation has normalized, and... Yes, the full scan shows the problem is not -strictly speaking- physiological. I’m adding several good psychologists and psychiatrists to your socnet now... Just be sure he talks to one of them about this incident, or it could look bad when he applies for citizenship. Ralph,” she indicated one of the medibots, “will stay here until Paul is fully conscious, and then will take the stretcher with him when he leaves. Ralph is more than capable of answering any of your questions. I’ve got to be going, it looks like a possible stroke on level nine.” Before Mary could even utter her thanks, the doctor was already out the door with one of the medibots, a replacement for Ralph meeting her practically mid-stride as

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Forget What You Can’t Remember they all rushed to the elevators. Mary nearly felt like fainting, herself, after that unexpected and overwhelming tumult of information and assistance. She looked at Ralph, who seemed to be content to stand silently by, watching the infostream from the stretcher’s scanning system without a word or a look. “Will he... Will he be alright?” Ralph’s grey face looked up at her, and she saw genuine compassion there, felt already that Ralph had a better bedside manner than the live doctor he’d accompanied. “Yes, Mary, he’ll be fine. He’s been feeling pretty anxious, lately. It was only a matter of time before something like this happened.” “This is my fault...” Mary could feel her eyes begin to dampen. “No, dear, but you can help him.” Ralph’s body language was at least as reassuring as Mary’s had been toward Paul only a few minutes earlier, but a gentle touch and a caring tone went much further to calm Mary’s nerves than they had Paul’s. “He needs your support, and he needs to talk to a professional about what’s going on. Be strong for him, Mary, and help him to take care of himself.” Ralph looked briefly at the stretcher’s visible display -more for show, since Ralph received all the data wirelessly and directly into his consciousness- and then back to Mary. “He’s waking.”

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Chapter 13

“H

ey, didn’t I see you on the ground, back in Denver? Were you part of the rescue operation, or were you with us during... With the, uhh... zombies?” “I went down with the rescuers, I guess.” Paul didn’t feel like a hero, and said so. “Though I think most of the rescuing happened before Skythia ever got to Denver. Are you...” Paul wasn’t sure how to ask about his role tactfully, considering how the subject of zombies had nearly gone unspoken. “Were you from Denver, originally?” “No, I was with the Sergeant’s group. The last training class, actually. We only got half the normal training, on account of the outbreak in Denver. Though I guess that surviving that must count for something.” Brady thought back to that time before the world had turned upside down. He tried to remember what life had been like before he’d lost his grip on reality. “I suppose I would've been heading back to work around the same time you all hit the ground back there. Funny how things take unexpected turns sometimes, isn’t it?” Paul tried to decide whether it was a good idea to let this young man know that if it hadn’t been for the zombie outbreak, he might not have ever existed at all, and quickly realized that considering the setting it was better left unsaid.

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “Sure is. I’m Paul, by the way.” He reached out to shake the other man’s hand, “and you are?” “Brady.” They shook each other’s hands with convincing surety. “Pleased to meet you.” “And just so you don’t think I’m... Well, anyway, I’ve only been on this flying city a few more days than you have. I was on the last plane to arrive before the uhh...” Paul’s tongue caught itself fast enough to continue avoiding the subject he’d spent a lifetime talking about to save his life only to find out he didn’t know how to live without it, “... zombie outbreak. I’m in the same civics classes as some of the survivors.” Brady looked around the office, cocked his head to indicate it, “You having trouble adapting to this place, too?” “It isn’t just Skythia, there’s...” Paul was thinking fast as he could to continue not saying anything that might give any idea what he wasn’t talking about, “well, something I spent my whole life looking forward to came and went, and the anticipation...” “You got so caught up in looking forward to it that when it happened it was a real let down? That happens to me all the time.” “Like that, but bigger, somehow. Like if you had been looking forward to your twenty first birthday for thirty years, and you wake up one morning and you’re twenty-one and you don’t remember your birthday and now that you think of it you didn’t really like alcohol after all. Or like you saved your allowance all through your childhood, through your teen years, just putting every penny into a giant piggy bank, for decades, until finally the day came and you put the entire savings on the line to pay for a sixty second ride on the world’s greatest roller coaster. Except you blacked out from excitement before the ride started and now you don’t have your money, you don’t even have your memory of the event, and you feel like you wasted your whole life for nothing.” “Is that why you’re here?”

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Teel McClanahan III “Well, partially. I’ve been having trouble adjusting to...” Paul hadn’t really taken the time to try to put into words what he’d been having trouble with, exactly, he just knew that passing out from being too anxious because your girlfriend doesn’t want to co-habitate wasn’t exactly a sign of premium mental health. “...to not living in constant anticipation, I guess. I don’t know how to be. It’s like I’ve lost my footing in the world and I don’t know how to make decisions or set goals or just ... be a person any more.” “You don’t know what to believe in, any more.” Brady hadn’t had the same exact experience as Paul, but could immediately relate to his feeling of being out of place, unsure of the world. “Like a crisis of faith, right?” “A little. It wasn’t exactly like losing my religion, but close enough that the words probably fit.” “I know it’s not perfectly true, but I think I know how you feel. That’s why I’m here, too. I haven’t been coping well. It’s not just Skythia for me, it’s more than that, but I can’t really pin it down. My life just feels so ... distant, somehow. Or the reality I’m now surrounded by seems so dreamlike, and I feel as though I’m not the dreamer, but instead am some detail of the dream that will fade quickly when the dreamer awakens. Sometimes I feel like I’m already fading, and then something will rouse my attention and I’ll realize I missed something. An entire class, a conversation, heck, I missed an entire walking tour yesterday and the very attractive tour guide entirely.” “Sounds pretty bad. My life feels like anything but a dream. Last night I had a panic attack over nothing. I’ve been freaking out about the littlest things lately, when I used to be on top of world-changing events. I’m here at the recommendation of a medibot named Ralph.” “Oh? You’ve met one of the robots?” Paul didn’t point out that the reception system in the psychiatrist’s office -which Brady had spoken to directly when he’d come in- was merely a virtual talking head rep-

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Forget What You Can’t Remember resenting an AI resident of Skythia. “Yes, quite a few, actually. They’re pretty much everywhere, same as everyone else. Ralph seemed nice. Very understanding, very helpful. He showed me a couple of breathing techniques I could use if I felt another panic attack coming on, and recommended this psychiatrist from the list the primary doctor had provided.” “The robot could breathe?” “You know, I...” Paul’s eyes looked off into the unfocused distance as he thought back. “I guess I hadn’t considered that, last night. He certainly seemed to be breathing. Looked right. Sounded right. I guess I was too embarrassed to have fainted in front of Mary and too worried about whether there was something seriously wrong with me that it didn’t occur to me to wonder whether Ralph was actually breathing in and out or not. He probably was, though I don’t know enough about robot design and engineering to say whether or not it was to any purpose.” “It sounds like it had a very important purpose, Paul. It was breathing to help calm you down, to make you feel better, and more confident of your ability to survive another panic attack. I used to work with someone who got bad panic attacks sometimes, and believe me when I tell you that Ralph gave you just about the best advice in the world. We take breathing for granted, but when it comes down to it, it’s really life or death. A few good, deep breaths can mean the difference between just having a tough day and being carted off in an ambulance... Or whatever they do around here when someone gets sick.” “Apparently, they make house calls. From what I’m told, preemptive house calls. I either missed that part of the orientation -twice- or I haven’t got there yet in civics, because I apparently did not know that the city constantly monitors every citizen’s health and bodily functions as a matter of course. So things like strokes, heart attacks, and even accidents like a fall or a bad cut can be treated in time for the treatment to do some good. Mary said that a medical

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Teel McClanahan III response team was at the door before she could even finish shouting for help.” “I don’t know whether to be amazed or horrified by that. Which my friend Lance is getting just about sick of me saying about things here in Skythia. There’s just so much about this place that goes against everything I’ve been taught my whole life, and maybe because I still feel so out of it, I don’t know how to process all of it.” “Maybe you’re out of it because you haven’t been able to process it.” “Sure, and if this psychiatrist ever gets to us, maybe I’ll have a professional be able to tell me which one it is.” Paul just shrugged. They’d both picked this psychiatrist partially because she was accepting new patients and partially because she accepted walk-ins two days a week, with that morning being one of them. Brady shrugged back. Talking to Paul seemed engaging enough that he didn’t feel too worried about how long it would be, or really whether he got in to see the doctor that day at all. “Still, to know that they’d detected your panic attack coming on before you did, and dispatched a medical team to be sure you were alright? What about your privacy?” Paul tapped through a few items on his handheld display, pulled up the brochure he’d been given, and directed a copy to Brady’s handheld. “Here’s the brochure they gave me. Apparently, when it is not a case of a pre-existing medical condition, or where your doctor is unavailable and can’t transfer medical records, or similar situations, the medical team is dispatched without any particulars until consent is given to enter a private residence. In cases where the only person present in a private space is incapacitated, pre-consent -which you may not yet realize you’ve already given, when you signed off after orientation- is used to give the medics access to both your private space and your medical info. For medical emergencies in public spaces, there’s no hold on relevant medical data. It’s a lot like the policies

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Forget What You Can’t Remember about recordings - your health is part of what’s being recorded, and information about your health will be released either with your consent, the consent of someone present at the time, or if it is deemed medically necessary.” Brady had been scanning through the more-detailed account of the policies in the brochure on his handheld while Paul spoke. “All of this just blows my mind. There are artificial intelligences who are registered as special witnesses currently monitoring all my vital signs and my general physical health, and if something goes wrong medical professionals will be sent to me. Sometimes even before I know anything is wrong.” “In many cases, you’ll be contacted through normal channels as soon as a problem is detected, at the same time medics are being contacted. For heart attacks, I guess most people don’t start experiencing symptoms they recognize as anything unusual or requiring medical intervention for twenty minutes and up to six hours, and by then most of the damage is already done. One in four heart attack sufferers experience no symptoms at all, sometimes until weeks or months later from their reduced heart function. Skythia knows within seconds that there’s a problem, you’re notified, you give consent for medics to access your medical data, you’re given instructions -things like sit down, try to relax, take deep breaths, et cetera, medics are on their wayand doctors are sent to you with the right drugs on hand and the right information. Did you get to the part on heart attacks?” Brady nodded, reading along. “I guess there’s a drug cocktail they can administer that stops the heart attack and prevents irreversible damage if administered within the first hour, and in Skythia the average time to get the drug is under three minutes.” “And according to this brochure they then follow up with lifestyle coaching for you and your friends and family, so that your general health can be improved pro-actively and future problems can be avoided,” Brady read directly from

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Teel McClanahan III his handheld. “This all sounds very invasive. Like the government and some computer program is making decisions about my life for me.” “The lifestyle coaching is all optional, at will stuff, and is actually recommended for all Skythians,” Paul responded, failing to realize as he explained it that he was a prime candidate for the program. “It’s part of their comprehensive wellness and preventive care system. Since Skythia is all about the greatest good for all, they’ve got policies like this all over. Working together so everyone is as healthy and as happy as possible. Everyone well informed about how to eat well and keep fit, how to build better relationships and stronger communities, how to avoid and resolve conflicts and embrace each individual’s personal choices. It’s intentional and endemic. Offices like this one exist by and large for people like us - new residents. Most people either drink the kool-aid, take the courses, and learn to get along and be healthy, or they decide that Skythia doesn’t fit and they leave. Apparently, all that stuff works.” “Or maybe Skythians self-select for those traits, which you half-described as happening, and for people for whom that stuff works. Perhaps Skythia self-selects for people who want their decisions made for them by something greater or higher than themselves, and the entire populace is codependent and unable to either self-direct or protect their own interests and privacy.” “That’s a pretty cynical statement. I’d like to think that as much time and thought and effort they put into taking a very active role in the day to day operation of their government and citizenship that that isn’t the case.” “You mean the direct democracy thing? I have my doubts about that.” “I’ve been here a little longer, I’ve even been present when the mayor put together some propositions for emergency decisions. It’s exactly what it seems. Haven’t you done any practice voting?”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “Yeah, in class, but... You know the mayor?” “Sure. I had to get his personal sign-off to join the group that was going down to Denver. Everyone else who went into quarantine with you was a full citizen. If not for my relationship with Colm, I may never have met Mary.” “Wait, Mary? With red hair? The Mary you’ve been mentioning is the one who was with us in Denver?” “Yeah, why? Did you know her?”

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Chapter 14

“Y

ou can’t clone a creature just so you can wrestle it to death.” “Why not? They clone animals to slaughter them for food.” “That’s not the same thing, Sarge! Most of the cloned meat isn’t even an entire animal - they just grow huge slabs of pure muscle, kept alive artificially. No nerve fiber, so no cruelty. No pain. Tearing a live creature apart with your bare hands isn’t nearly the same thing.” “Not all the meat comes from pure muscle. I went over to the Kobe beef farm; those are real, live beef cows, and they’re slaughtered in the normal way, and butchered according to tradition, which is more about tearing the thing apart than what I’m proposing. With any success, each animal I wrestle will either be subdued by restricting blood flow to the brain, in a sort of sleeper hold, or have its neck cleanly broken, which would be as instant and painless as what they do with the live beef.” “Killing an animal for pleasure and killing an animal for food are simply not in the same ethical ballpark, Sarge. There’s no justification for pleasure killing.” “There would be in the ring. It would be self defense. You think a sabertooth tiger is just going to bowl over and

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Forget What You Can’t Remember let me kill it? That’s the point, Lorraine. I need a challenge. It would be it or me, life or death. They wouldn’t let me bring any zombies on board. What am I supposed to do with myself?” “Why don’t you use a simulator, wrestle virtual monsters? Or open some other sort of training camp, teach people survivalism. You could even do virtual zombies. After what happened in Denver, I’m sure there’d be demand.” “Simulations just aren’t the same! There’s no real risk involved. No real challenge without real stakes. No one’s going to learn how to fend off zombies if they train with simulated zombies; there’s no fear that your next wrong move will be your last, and when the day comes that you’re face to face with a real zombie, with a real threat to your life, you know there’s going to be real fear. You were there, you saw it, you felt it, if you don’t learn to survive and operate in the midst of that crippling level of fear, terror itself will be your real killer. I know I didn’t put you through my full training program, but that’s the main focus, the primary teaching point: Learn to overcome -or at least to push your way through- paralyzing fear of imminent death.” “Maybe you could get them to add Denver back to the regular route of the city’s journey. Train people with simulations here in Skythia, then when we get to Denver, people who pass the preliminary course go down and face real zombies. You teach them to survive, you’ll be doing what you love, what you’re passionate about, they’ll learn to overcome their fears and to survive catastrophic, life-threatening situations, and over time Denver’s zombie problem would be cleaned up.” “Not to mention, no saber tooth tigers or giant spiders would be harmed... Don’t think you can distract me that easily, Lorraine.” “I’m not trying to distract you, I’m trying to suggest alternatives that I think would pass a public vote and still have a chance of keeping you from crawling the walls.”

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Teel McClanahan III “And I’m trying to find my place in Skythia. How does someone like me fit into a place like this? They have so much technology, so much information, so many capabilities, and what are they doing with it? I looked it up after we visited the zoo - they can clone hundreds of extinct species, they can, and they do -once each- just to be sure the code is good and the animal is healthy. Then they put it down painlessly and recycle its body. They never clone another. To me, that’s a waste. What’s the point of resurrecting the most dangerous and powerful killers to walk the Earth if you aren’t going to see what they can do? That’s like cloning Mozart and putting him down before he’s old enough to write any music, or cloning Merlin and killing him before he’s old enough to do any magic. It doesn’t make any sense.” “Merlin’s still alive, Sarge.” “That’s not the point, and you know it!” “I know, I know, but you’re drawing comparisons between humans and animals. Between extinct species and specific dead people. That’s not really a strong argument. We don’t clone Ted Bundy and Charles Manson and release the clones into society and see if we can catch them before they kill again. The cloning, the genetic archive, is created to preserve the Earth’s rich history and biodiversity.” “All I’m suggesting is that these tools, technology, and data can be put to other uses. That cloning can be put to uses other than growing meat that feels no pain and creating an archive of all life on Earth. I’m suggesting that Skythia, whether it wants to or not, has a new class of resident living in it, who wants to use the tools at my disposal in ways they never thought of before. I thought that was what they strived for here, even among the boring researchers- to come up with new ideas, new ways of doing things, new ways of looking at things, all that.” “Yes, but ethical ways. Moral ways. Not new ways to kill and maim and destroy life.”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “Now you’re contradicting yourself, Lorraine. You’ve told me more than once I could design high-tech weapons full time, if I wanted to. As long as I don’t use them to hurt anyone here, the development of advanced weaponry was accepted. Part of that whole philosophy that lets everyone do whatever they want as long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of other residents. Isn’t that the morality of Skythia?” “What about the rights of the creatures you’d be wrestling to death? What about the harm you’d be doing to them?” “As far as I know, animals aren’t afforded the same rights as persons here in Skythia. Robots, dinosaurs, minority races, AI, and even that one ghost they talked about in orientation...” “Trelane.” “Sure, right, whatever, but you get the idea. They set up criteria to prove personhood, and in order to have citizenship rights, you have to meet them. Animals don’t meet them. Pets are treated as property under the law. So are young children, to a certain extent.” “Children have rights, though, Sarge. You couldn’t just break a child’s neck because it didn’t pass the citizenship or personhood tests.” “Not rights, Lorraine. Children have protections, not rights. They’re effectively treated as a special kind of property that their legal guardians are responsible for and have first rights to.” “I’m sure that’s not how their parents see them. I know that’s not how I’d see my own children. People aren’t property.” “And children aren’t people. Not yet, anyway, and the law here recognizes that. Neither are clones of extinct animals. If I commissioned a clone, it would be like any other property in Skythia -not owned by anyone- and I would be responsible for it, and I would have first rights to it. So if it got out and hurt someone, it would be legally as though I

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Teel McClanahan III had harmed the person. And in the same way I would be the one to decide what was done with it, how it was kept and treated, et cetera, unless in doing so I somehow infringed on a citizen’s protected rights.” “You’ve clearly spent some time thinking about this.” “Sure. I wasn’t going to bring it up until I was sure it was a legal, defensible thing to do. Your suggestion for doing a two-part zombie training school with one part on the ground in Denver is a good one, and I’ll also look up what would be required for that, but I think I’m on pretty solid ground with the dangerous animals. I’ve checked out a couple of properties that could be set up to raise and contain the animals safely. Nothing more complicated than setting up for a cage fight would really be necessary in the arena itself, with the new alloys they’ve developed. It’s really amazing, Lorraine, they have a metal that can be used to make chain link fencing which was strong enough to contain a tyrannosaur volunteer, and a sort of beehive-inspired webbing pattern they weave it into that improves both tensile strength and visibility for the audience.” “And you think there’ll be an audience for this? You think people will want to watch you attack and kill defenseless animals.” “Not defenseless animals. The most dangerous animals to ever walk the Earth. We put that on the promos and people will come out in droves. Saber tooth tigers. Tasmanian wolves. Giant spiders. Centaurs, griffins, velociraptors. Not all to the death, obviously.” “Obviously. You’d have to find centaurs, griffins, and dinosaurs willing to make this sort of spectacle of themselves, though. They’re by no means property here.” “I’ve already made contact with a centaur who would be more than glad to take my challenge. We’ll be passing over his home town in a couple of weeks. You can meet him. He seems like a really nice guy, and agrees that the status quo

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Forget What You Can’t Remember needs a little shaking up, something to get Skythia’s blood pumping.” “Fine, but dinosaurs are pacifists.” “So are centaurs, most of the time. I don’t need an entire culture to want to wrestle, just one or two individuals. Velociraptors, allosaurs, they live their whole lives right on the edge of their violent, carnivorous natures. I’ll copy you on a couple of their books; some of them have been putting their aggression down in words to try to keep from tearing anyone’s throats out. We don’t pass by Waterfall City for a few months, but I’ll still be raising my clones to maturity for the better part of a year or two. There’s no big rush. The zombie survival training and my required civil service will be more than enough to keep me busy while I prepare a stock of dangerous animals and other intelligent fighters to challenge.” “You’re insane, you know that, Sarge?” “That’s why you love me, darling.” “Maybe a little, but I don’t want to see you torn to shreds by your own machismo. I don’t want to see you invest years of your life in a slow sort of suicide. Why are you doing this, Sarge? What’s the point? Are you just trying to show everyone they were right not to try this stuff? Are you trying to break my heart?” “No, no, nothing like that. I don’t expect to die. I expect to overcome, to show what humans are capable of.” “But you said yourself there’s no challenge without real stakes. If there wasn’t a chance you’d be killed or maimed, you wouldn’t consider it worth doing! You’re planning to risk your life!” “It’s a calculated risk, Lorraine. I don’t want to make you have to go on without me any more than I would want to go on living without you, or without the ability to fight or even to walk were I to fail. I’ll be making good use of the simulators, to keep in shape, to get ready, so that when I step on to that stage to face my opponents, I’ll be in harm’s way,

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Teel McClanahan III but in no real danger. I’m in pretty close to peak physical condition right now, the last couple of weeks without my normal training regimen notwithstanding, and in the years it will take to prepare a stable of animals of sufficient danger I’ll be able to become even more fit. You have nothing to fear, Lorraine.” “But I will. I know myself at least as well as I know you, and I’m going to be worried about you. Not just during the big fight nights you’re planning, but even just in the day to day raising of an entire stable of dangerous animals. You’re not exactly a zoo keeper. Farming zombies is not the same as trying to keep giant spiders and wolves and tigers and whatever else you can find in the archive fed and healthy and from eating each other. One wrong move and you’re lunch and I’m left alone again.” “Oh, they won’t be able to eat each other. Think about the zoo we visited. Each animal only has a few square feet of real space, but with the full virtualization simulators they perceive themselves in their natural habitat, free to roam and interact as they would in a fully realized environment. I’m planning the same sort of thing for my animals, so they don’t become weak or coddled like most zoo animals. They’ll have to fight for survival, to face the elements and otherwise toughen up. Each species will be physically isolated, while giving them a full, natural life to become the killing machines they were born to be. Interaction will all be automated and integrated into the simulation. I won’t be in the same room as any of the animals from the day I get them from the lab until the day I face them in the cage.” “I guess that’s some small relief. Are you sure there isn’t anything I could say to talk you out of this? Maybe suggest that you just run a zoo of dangerous animals instead of fighting them...?” “That’s already part of the proposal -that researchers would have full access to the recorded data within the simulations to study the behavior of these extinct animals as they

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Forget What You Can’t Remember mature. Some have already requested, if this moves forward, to be able to run experiments on the animals. We’re working on a set of protocols that would allow certain types of interaction and intervention without compromising the integrity of the simulated environment or the danger I’ll be facing in the cage. You told me to find a way to fit in, and I’ve been trying to find my place. Politics, I can handle. It’s just negotiating to make people happy, really, and it’s a skill any true leader has to have. I’ve just been applying that skill to Skythia, finding avenues to not only get what I want, but come out looking great while I do it. I’ve already got a lot of people pledging to vote for my proposal, and to give their endorsements. Respected scientists, naturalists, and the man with first rights to the arena itself.” “You’ve been busy.” “Did you think I was just sitting around staring at the walls while you were out with Mary?” “No, I just... I didn’t realize you were so far along. I’ve barely given thought to what I want to do here. Mary thinks I should apprentice for the legislature with her and Paul, but I was thinking maybe about looking into a position within the judiciary. As far as what to do with the rest of my time -besides you, of course- I haven’t even begun to think. It didn’t seem too pressing, and you’re just moving right along without me, and now I feel like some sort of layabout.” “You know I can’t not be doing something, love. I’m not trying to leave you behind, or leave you out of things, I’ve just been keeping myself busy and this was the first time I felt comfortable talking about it all. A few days ago it was mostly just ideas and research and now it’s really beginning to come together. I’m telling you now because it feels like I have something to tell. You’re doing what’s right for you, and I’m doing what’s right for me, and as far as working and personal feelings of accomplishment go, those are very different things. You don’t have to worry about whether you’re

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Teel McClanahan III doing enough to match me, you only need to do enough to make you, Lorraine, satisfied. If you’re happy, I’m happy.” “I know, it’s just that it’s hard not to make comparisons. It’s hard not to wonder what you see in me. Why you’d love someone who so obviously doesn’t measure up to--” “Stop. I love you because you’re not like me, and I love you for the way you see me, and I love you because together we’re so much more than the sum of our parts, and I love the way you hold me accountable. Don’t compare yourself to me. I don’t want you to be like me. I’ll be me. You be Lorraine, and you’ll be love.”

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Chapter 15

“S

o you didn’t even see the counselor?”

“No, but listen, I haven’t even got to the interesting part, yet.” “Did you at least make an appointment?” “Sure, yes, she could only see one more walk-in patient and I let Paul go and made an appointment for later in the week. But listen, after we’d been going through all the emergency medical procedures for a while,” Brady was trying to get to the point, but Lance kept interrupting him. “Which I know you’ve been over at least twice before, Brady. You say you’ve been out of it, but I’m pretty sure you passed a quiz on that stuff last week.” “I know, I know, I haven’t been entirely present in my own life, lately, and I’m going to see a counselor later this week, but would you just give me a chance to finish my story?” Lance nodded. “Anyway, uhh... Okay, so the guy I met in the waiting room, Paul, is apparently seeing Mary. He came down to Denver with the Skythians, even though he’s only been in Skythia about a week longer than we have, and apparently he hit it off immediately with her. Can you believe it? Mary...”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “Mary? Am I supposed to know who that is? Someone from Denver, I suppose?” “Come on, you have to remember Mary! The red head from our training class? The one you kept trying to get me to pursue?” “Didn’t she turn you down in Denver? I thought you finally tried for her after our first stadium run.” “Yeah, I tried. She was a helluva lot worse off than I am now, back there. Totally out of it, she barely had the presence of mind to rebuff my advances. Not that I could have taken advantage; she had clearly taken down her share of zombies by then and I wasn’t about to mess with a bloodsplattered woman with a deadly weapon clutched tightly in each hand.” “Yeah, I thought I remembered you telling me something about that.” “Apparently she’s made quite a recovery, to the point where she’s been the one to help Paul out as his mental health has been slipping a bit. He heard about the doctor who assisted him second hand from her, because apparently the doctor didn’t have time for him to actually wake up before moving on to the next imminent medical need. I figured that since he’d actually needed urgent medical care, his need was probably more immediate than mine. Not to mention I don’t have anyone to worry about me; he’s also got Mary to worry about.” “You mean to worry about him, right?” “Right. You got pretty upset when I returned home early and called you, imagine how a girlfriend would react, especially if she’d seen him pass out from panic attack the prior evening.” “You’re probably right,” Lance admitted. “Which I was going to get to a bit quicker, but you kept interrupting me. I knew you’d be concerned, I wasn’t avoiding seeing someone, and I’m not avoiding talking about it.”

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Teel McClanahan III “Alright, alright, can we change the subject, now?” “What do you want to talk about? Mary? The problems of utopia?” “Culinary school.” “Culinary school?” “Yes. I’ve applied to Skythia’s top culinary academy. If I’m accepted, I’ll be studying under Chambot himself. It’s pretty exciting.” “I didn’t know you could cook, Lance. Where did this come from, all of a sudden?” “It’s Skythia’s fault, in a way. I’ve always dreamed of going to culinary school, but it wasn’t practical. Running a restaurant is a sure-fire way to go broke fast, and unless you hit it big somehow it’s not very likely that you’ll pay back student loans from culinary school by running your own place. So I got my CSE instead and paid off my loans within just a few years of UNIX administration. It was a practical choice.” “But now you don’t have to be practical, anymore?” “The same concerns don’t apply. I can do culinary school and most any civic service at the same time, and because the economy isn’t built around debt and the accumulation of wealth, concerns like student loans and the quarter-by-quarter economic viability of running a restaurant disappear from the equation. I can literally follow my dreams without worrying about whether or not they’re practical. It was a very liberating realization.” “Is this because of our talk yesterday?” “In a way. After the tour, some of the things I’d found myself justifying to you and explaining to you about Skythia got me thinking. I tried to figure out not just whether there was something scarce or limited in Skythia, but also what the implications of a society where people’s choices were limited only by the bounds of their imaginations would be. I tried to think of something I might want to do that wouldn’t be possible here, and when I thought of becoming a chef and

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Forget What You Can’t Remember running my own restaurant, I had answers to both of my questions.” “That was the best you could come up with?” “No, but there’s already someone running a zoo of endangered and extinct species, there are two body modification parlours in town that will do custom genemod extensions, major surgery, or cybernetics without requiring a clear medical need, and I found one guy who is effectively a homeless panhandler. While I was looking, I found a lot more interesting things, but didn’t see any clear limits.” “What do you mean by ‘without a clear medical need’?” “It means ... they’ll do whatever you want, just because you want it.” “Like what, though? Cosmetic surgery? Radioactive tattoos? What are they doing?” “Here, let me pull their sites up and show you.” Lance quickly retrieved the body-mod parlours’ sites from his browsing history, and mirrored his handheld on a wall-sized display. “Here, this man had his entire body tattoo’d with green scales before he got to Skythia, here’s the before, with his forked tongue and a few silicon implants to make his facial features more lizard-like. Then here’s what he had done in Skythia: He had a dinosaur tail genemodded to match his immune system, and now he has a semi-prehensile lizard tail. His hair was all removed on a per-follicle basis by robots designed specifically for that task, and a sort of sub-dermal bump-mapping was done to give more realistic definition to his tattoo’d scales. His eyes were replaced so now he sees in the same visual spectrum as a reptile, and he later had extensive organ replacement so his diet could match the reptilian diet he’d pieced together from a variety of species.” “Does he still live here? What do real reptiles think of him?”

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Teel McClanahan III “No, he was a resident of Skythia for a few years, but only as long as it took to get the modifications he wanted. He never even applied for acting citizenship status.” “I don’t understand how Skythia can operate like that. He didn’t really contribute anything, he didn’t become a citizen, he just took advantage of Skythia’s resources and technology and generosity and disappeared.” “I thought of that, but I looked into it and -of coursethey had a vote before allowing him to stay on that long, and it was decided that he would work part-time for the executive branch during his residence. He agreed to it, and basically did more for the city in his time here than the average citizen. About double the minimum requirement, since most citizens only do civil service about half the time.” “Oh.” “They do a lot of other stuff, though. Look through these images. Extra limbs, tails, eye mods, sensory mods, tattoos, piercings, digital tattoos that can change on the fly or even animate, full body dye-jobs, limb replacement, whatever you want. They once made a Kwytzwik passable as a human, though they don’t have any photos since he’s literally passing himself off as a human now. The limb replacement stuff is pretty neat.” “I see what you meant by ‘without medical need,’ now.” “Prosthetic limbs surpassed human ability years ago, but most cultures don’t accept intentional body mutilation for the purpose of enhancement. Skythia does, and these parlours provide the service. Amputation and replacement of limbs is pretty popular for athletes now, increasing stride length and endurance in a matter of days. Other citizens have been more creative,” Lance zoomed in on an image and Brady made a noise that bridged the gap between shock and disgust as it filled the wall display, “like this guy who had both his legs amputated at the hip and replaced with clusters of genemod tentacles in all colors of the rainbow.”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “What’s wrong with his eyes?” Lance zoomed the image in closer. “He had them upgraded. Now he has two insectoid lens-clusters and three cybernetic eyes that capture different parts of the spectrum.” “And his brain can process all that information in a meaningful way?” “Apparently the human brain is capable of a lot more than we’ve been led to believe. New sensory information is picked up and processed as though you had been born with it, usually within days or weeks. Once they worked out how to get the nerves to connect and the immune system to accept the new limbs, they discovered that the rest came just as easily as re-learning to use limbs after a traumatic accident. A little physical therapy and extra limbs,” Lance pulled up an image of a woman with six arms, “work and feel just as well as the ones you start with. Same for legs, tails, wings, et cetera.” “But the skeleton and core musculature isn’t designed to support or control extra limbs. How do her extra arms work without extra shoulders?” “That, according to their FAQ page, is where the bulk of their efforts are invested for any extreme body mod. Solving those problems in an effective and attractive way is the challenge that motivates them to keep doing this work. Apparently it’s a point of professional pride to create a solution that doesn’t rely on a mechanical support system. Sometimes they have to use artificial muscles and carbon fiber skeletal systems, or even computer control, but their goal seems to be a total biological solution.” “That’s insane. Insane, but beautiful, too.” “Sure, and that was their dream. To push the envelope of biological design, and to challenge themselves by inspiring others to become something new and unique. Skythia embraces that sort of dream and supplies it with the resources it needs to thrive. My little dream of opening a restaurant is mundane compared to what some people are doing here.

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Teel McClanahan III Still, it did illuminate what may be the primary scarce resource in Skythia.” “Which is...?” “The time of experts. Chambot is a world-renowned chef, probably the best chef and best culinary teacher in Skythia. He runs his own restaurant atop one of the highest structures in town, where he cooks every night. There is a simulated classroom anyone can load in a simulator at their leisure and study the basics, but if you want to learn one-onone, hands-on with Chambot himself, and get personalized instruction and assistance, you have to compete for his time with anyone else who wants to study with him. He can only personally teach a handful of students a year, because his time is a finite resource. It’s the same with any of the tens of thousands of experts in town who spend any time giving personal instruction; there are only so many hours available in a year.” “So how do they decide which students to take?” “Exactly the question. Different teachers handle the problem in different ways, which is their prerogative. Less sought-after teachers can usually get away with a basic firstcome, first served policy, as there are plenty of other resources that could take their place, and even then it’s only a matter of time before the applicant is served. For experts like Chambot, though, that would create waiting lists years long. So, they use lotteries, applications, interviews, gene scans, whatever they think is appropriate. Skythian citizens accumulate a sort of aggregate social recommendation over time, as different people give personal recommendations, reviews, and annotations to them in the system, and that usually comes into play as well. For example, I can pull you up right now,” Lance tapped away at his handheld, pulling up the city’s file on Brady, “and the basic info is all right there, your time in city, access to every public and otherwise accessible recording of you, all that.”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember Brady looked at his profile information, larger than life on the big display, “You can even see I was just at the psychiatrist... I’m still not used to how public everything is, here.” “Who else is looking at your profile, Brady? Anyway, it also lists your basic pre-Skythian history, so it knows where you worked, where you lived, that sort of public info. And it knows we worked together, so if I pull up your employment history, it offers me the option of writing a little something about working with you.” Lance tapped the option and began filling in details. “What departments we worked in, my impressions of your work ethic and attitudes and competencies, whatever I think is relevant. I can also assign a general recommendation via either a simple positive or negative mark, or a star-based ratings system.” Lance gave Brady four stars out of five and wrote a generally positive recommendation of his performance, based on his perspective as a coworker. “This is now part of your permanent profile in the system, and whenever you apply to work with someone in Skythia, this will not only filter toward the top of their background search for you, but it will look good compared to all the new residents who don’t know anyone in Skythia to recommend them yet. As you get more recommendations and reviews, both positive and negative, the system will begin to show them in aggregate and eventually people will be able to see at a glance what your friends, coworkers, classmates, and other sub-groups think of you, depending upon the context of their search.” “And do you have any recommendations yet? Anything that will help you get one-on-one training from that chef?” “Unfortunately, no. Since I don’t have any relevant work history or training, even having a lot of recommendations might have less weight with Chambot than a single recommendation from another chef. I did the standard application, though, and wrote a personal letter expressing my passion for the subject. Plus, I’ve already started going

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Teel McClanahan III through the simulation training course he created. He’ll be able to review my performance there. I’ve agreed to give him full access to the recorded sessions, so he’ll be able to see for himself how I’m doing and how I work with him.” “Weird. Just the idea that he’ll have to check a video recording to know how you two work together. I know it’s because you’re going to be working with a virtual version of the man, but it seems counter-intuitive.” “I’m sure he’s not the only one who uses programs like that to filter applicants. If you can’t get along with a good simulation of a person, you probably won’t get along in person, either. If you can figure that out before offering a seat in a high-demand class or position, you can make more room for people who will get more out of it. Obviously it’s a dream of mine to study under a great chef, but if I find out in the simulation that we don’t get along or I don’t learn well from his teaching style, I’m better off not wasting the valuable resource of his time, and so is he.”

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132

Chapter 16, Part 1

“I

really don’t see why this is necessary, Doctor. I feel fine.” “I told you, Mary, I’m concerned about your memory loss. There’s been a pattern of memory loss among the survivors of the zombie outbreak in Denver and a lot of you are having trouble coping, with adjusting to life after such a horrific event. When Paul mentioned your memory loss, I wanted to be sure you were getting the same level of care as the others.” “And I appreciate that, but I’m much more concerned with Paul’s mental health than my own at this point. He’s been losing touch with his own ability to plan for the future, to make mature decisions, and he’s been having panic attacks over things he agrees shouldn’t have been so stressful. I’m fine. I’ve been making new friends, doing well in the civics classes, and I think I’m really going to fit in well here in Skythia. I feel more confident and self-assured than I can remember. I don’t need a shrink to tell me I’m fine.” “I’m glad to hear you’re feeling so confident, Mary, but I wonder about some of the things you’ve said. For example, when was the last time before coming here that you can remember feeling confident?”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “Before coming here, I didn’t feel very confident. I relied on other people’s approval for my sense of self-worth.” “People like who, Mary?” “Like my ex-boyfriends, my old bosses, my friends and my parents. I was like a puppet to them, because without their edification I felt like nothing more than a lifeless rag doll. Since Denver, though, it’s different. I can see my own value and I don’t need Paul to tell me what to do - I’m setting my own goals and making my own decisions for a change.” “Like the decision to live alone?” “Yes.” “Are you merely isolating yourself, Mary? Putting up walls to keep life from hurting you like it used to? Blocking your old life by forgetting it and blocking out any possibility of having that pain return by pushing people away and any chance of starting a new life along with them?” “What exactly did Paul tell you?” “That’s confidential, Mary, and irrelevant. We’re talking about you, not Paul.” “Look, I don’t know where you get off talking to me this way, and I’m not sure I want Paul to keep seeing you if this is the way you run your sessions. I’m trying to tell you that for the first time in my life I’m finally coming into my own, making my own decisions, feeling confident in myself and my future, and not relying on others for affirmation. I’m trying to get through your thick skull that I’m finally enjoying the good things about living in my own place at least until I have a firm grip on who I am and who I can be by myself. I’m not shutting Paul out completely, I’m not shutting out my old friends, like Lorraine, who survived Denver right along with me, and I’m not shutting out new possibilities and opportunities that seem to be pretty boundless here in Skythia. I’m not sick, I don’t need therapy or counseling or whatever you call it here. I’m as happy as I’ve ever been and the future is bright, so who needs the past?”

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Teel McClanahan III “Well, if you change your mind, or if any of your friends are having trouble dealing with their memory loss, please encourage them to seek treatment.” “Doubtful. And don’t expect to be seeing Paul again.” Mary touched the disconnect button on her handheld before the doctor could respond, and felt a certain sense of satisfaction at the look on her face as it had disappeared. “The nerve,” Mary muttered to herself as she began writing up a negative comment on the doctor’s public profile.

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Chapter 16, Part 2

“Y

eah, I didn’t get a good feeling from talking to her, either.” “As long as you don’t go back, Paul. I did a little more research after giving her profile a negative impression, and I’m not the only one who feels that way about her. Apparently she’s putting together some sort of sensationalist book about the effects of surviving a zombie outbreak together, really just using people’s personal traumas for her own gain.” “That’s awful.” “And look at this,” Mary transmitted a link to the wiki article on the doctor’s past books over to Paul’s handheld, “it isn’t the first time. She’s practically built her career off turning other people’s mental health into dreck for the tabloid crowd.” Mary flicked a finger and another link crossed the room to his screen. “She even had a citizenship recall go to a vote last year, after pissing off a few citizens who’d thought she was trying to help them only to find their lives and therapy sessions laid bare for all to see. Based on the post-vote poll and the results, most people who voted for her staying on did so because of her celebrity rather than on the merits of the complaint.”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “How is any of that possible? I thought people were required to know what they were voting on? Aren’t there controls? And what about doctor-patient confidentiality?” “It doesn’t technically exist here. Most doctors agree not to breach that relationship, but it isn’t protected by law, so if either party consents, anything can be made fully public, recordings and all.” Mary tapped around on her handheld for a moment and then more data was popping up on Paul’s. “Here’s the full results on that vote and the post-vote poll. Almost a third of all Skythians had to do a mandatory refresher on their civic duties in a citizenship recall vote as a result of their not having voted based on the merits of the petition. Over a thousand people have commented on her public profile saying that as soon as she’s eligible for recall again next year, they’re going to be the one to submit it for a vote.” “They can’t all be the one.” “Right, no, it’ll be whoever’s got their automated petition set to be submitted first. Actually, there’ll probably be a data-jam for a few milliseconds after the two-year anniversary of her first recall, and random chance will make one petition first.” “It’s a shame they can’t force it to come early by having more people sign on.” “They have these protections in place for a reason, Paul. Not just so that citizens aren’t having to deal constantly with recall petitions for having differing political views or taste in clothes, but also because Skythians believe strongly in the concept of rehabilitation. We believe that people can, and do, change. If her behavior in the next year or so suddenly shows improvement, if she shows exceptional civic activity and support, if she starts actually helping her patients or if she changes fields entirely and starts doing something that Skythia at large sees as worthwhile, then even with thousands of automated recall petitions pre-scheduled to try to knock her down at the first opportunity, when it goes to a

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Teel McClanahan III vote and people make an informed decision, she’ll have the chance to stay.” “Fat chance.” “I’m not disagreeing with you there, but it’s a chance you’d want to have if they put your citizenship on the line and you got a second chance rather than no chance at all, right?” “Sure. Although in my case I’m pretty sure it’ll be more of an issue when I apply for full citizenship in the first place, rather than as a second chance.” “I wish you’d tell me what happened, Paul. It’s obviously related to the way you’ve been feeling lately, and I know I’m involved somehow, because you get the same look on your face when I talk about having forgotten something as you do when you’re trying to avoid talking about it. You can’t have been involved in erasing my memory, so what is it?” “I don’t want to talk about it.” “Why not, Paul? What’s the problem? What are you hiding from me? We’re in a relationship, right?” Paul nodded. “People in relationships don’t keep big, dark secrets that are driving them crazy, Paul. Not if they want their relationships to last, they don’t.” “It’s just... You wouldn’t...” “What? I wouldn’t understand? I wouldn’t love you, any more? It’s driving you to see crackpot psychiatrists and into the arms of medibots. You’re going to have to talk about it at some point, Paul, and I’d rather it be with me than with a stranger, or someone looking to make a name off your story.” “I just don’t know how to talk about it, any more. I talked about it for so long, to so many people, before it happened, and now that it’s passed, I can’t find the words any more. It’s like I used them all up, somehow. I told him I’d write the rest of the story, but I don’t even know where to begin.”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “Told who you’d write the rest of the story?” “I don’t remember! And that’s part of the problem; knowing what I don’t know! Knowing what I should know!” As Paul’s emotions flared, Mary worried that a medical team might already be preemptively on their way. “I was the expert, the one others went to for details, and now I can’t remember them myself. And I know why, I know why our memories are missing, but in the same way you know your old boyfriends didn’t care about you. In the way that doesn’t do anyone any good. I literally wrote the book on the subject, and now I couldn’t pass a quiz on it.” “Wait. You literally wrote the book on the subject?”

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Chapter 16, Part 3

“W

ow.” Mary set down her handheld and dispassionately shook her head from side to side. “How did that survive the event, Paul?” “I uhh...” Paul had finished reading the book before Mary, and had been doing further peripheral research into the details he recalled but couldn’t remember while she’d finished. “I guess because it was a fictional account. Most of the other evidence, the reports and such, never existed.” “But never existed in the way my parents never existed, right?” “As far as I can tell, yes.” “This is really freaking me out, Paul. I mean, I understand now why you didn’t want to talk about it, and I understand that we’re okay, we’re safe now, but at the same time it’s creepy to know I never had any parents, I don’t have a home town, like I sprang into existence from nothing.” “You didn’t spring into existence from nothing, and some details are still there, but for example, look at this,” he tapped to transfer a couple of links to her handheld and she picked it up to follow them. “In your public profile. See anything unusual there?” “Well, do you mean like the fact that it doesn’t list my family, my history, my prior addresses, any of that?”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “But it doesn’t show anything being amiss, either, Mary. Look at the other profiles I sent. The one for Barty B’le ˘orn.” “What about it?” “He’s missing a bunch of information. He didn’t want his family’s dark history held against him here, and it won’t be, but you can see that each piece of missing information has a blank space marked in red as missing. It’s obvious he’s withholding information.” “But mine didn’t have that.” She was flipping back and forth between the two profiles with a gesture, “mine doesn’t have any red flags and it has a lot less information than Barty’s!” “Now look at yours and Lorraine’s profiles. See anything odd?” “Well, hers is missing almost as much information as mine is, and she also doesn’t have any red flags...” Mary kept looking at Lorraine’s profile, practically squinting as though to find some tiny detail. “How about her work history, do you see anything odd?” Paul was leading her down a path he knew would give the most effect, a tiny manipulation to illustrate the idea better. “No, it looks fine.” “Nothing unusual?” “Nothing unusual.” “Didn’t you two work together?” “Yeah.” “Where?” Mary looked up at Paul, then off into the distance, glassy-eyed as she tried to remember another one of those details that would never come. Finally, she looked back down at her handheld’s display and her eyes grew wide with shock and amazement. “How did you... ?”

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Teel McClanahan III “I didn’t do anything, Mary. That’s exactly what it said a moment ago when you couldn’t see anything wrong with it.” “But... There’s no business name. No details. I can’t...” Mary was truly squinting at the display, now. “I can hardly see... Just, out of the corner of my eye, but when I look...” “I know. But touch it, dig deeper, look to see who she worked with at the place that doesn’t even have a missing name.” “It knows we worked together.” Mary’s face was somewhat cartoonish, her confusion, amazement, and shock held it just so. She kept switching between different versions of the same lack of information, trying to see what could not be seen, trying to understand how the computer could both have information about her former employer and not have information about it at the same time. “It’s asking me to fill out a professional recommendation for Lorraine, based on our shared work history.” “Give it one. It’ll look good when she applies for work, later.” “If she applies for work. And if I write a positive review.” Mary started thinking of how to describe work habits Lorraine had shown in their mutual past the bulk of the details of which were impossible to remember. “And I guess it won’t look odd at all to whatever employers are looking at her profile that I worked with her at a place that never existed?” “Unless you explain to them that it never existed, it’ll be just like it was for you before I asked you the place’s name - it’ll seem completely normal for things to be as they are.” “How many things like that must there be in the world, right now?” “Not just the world, Mary. The event, whatever it is that did this, travels throughout the galaxy, perhaps the universe, making changes like these everywhere.”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “On a ten thousand year cycle, if the details in your novelization are to be believed.” “Right, so, however many details like this there are in the world, going unnoticed by all but a very few, most will pass away into the mists of history and be long forgotten before the event comes this way again.” “I don’t suppose there’s any way for me to un-know, to un-notice this un-existence, is there?” “I don’t know of a way, though I expect it’s as likely as your remembering the things that have now never happened. Still, as long as you keep moving forward instead of looking back,” “Which you’ve been encouraging all along,” Mary interjected, “you probably won’t notice too many more un-seeable sights or un-readable computer entries.” “But what about you? This was your whole life, Paul! What are you going to do now that it’s come and gone and taken the evidence with it?” “Now you know why I haven’t been coping well, lately.”

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Chapter 17

“H

ey, Paul! What are you doing here today?”

“I’m here to recommend that you don’t see this psychiatrist, actually. She doesn't exactly have the best track record, from a patient’s point of view.” “What did you think of her, yourself? I was here when you went into session with her the other day.” “Oh, she seems fine, but look at what she does with her patients’ information.” Paul handed over a handheld, already displaying the doctor’s public profile, with the worst bits highlighted. Brady took a few moments to look over the information. “I guess neither of us did our research before showing up for treatment the other day.” “Yeah, I’m still getting used to the way things are done around here. It didn’t occur to me that there would be a well-documented and thoroughly organized report on her entire life, easily filtered to show only what would be relevant to someone considering putting themselves in her care.” Brady sent the file, complete with annotations, to his own handheld and gave Paul back the device. “Though apparently there’s a profile like that in the system for everyone in Skythia.”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “Not just residents. Past residents, prospective residents, and most everyone who has ever done business with Skythian residents and citizens. I’m only just beginning to get the hang of looking everyone up preemptively, myself.” “Should I go in and cancel in person?” “Nah,” Paul reached over Brady’s arm and scrolled his display to the part of the doctor’s profile that showed Brady’s intersections with her, “just touch through to your appointment from here. You can take care of it without ever setting foot into her office again.” Brady did. “Thanks.” After cancelling his appointment and blocking her calls, Brady put his handheld back into his pants. “So, what now?” “I’m free if you don’t have anything else. Wanna try for that walking tour you missed at the start of the week? Not officially, I mean, just the two of us?” “Sure. As long as you don’t mind listening, of course. I’m pretty sure I don’t really need a psychiatrist as much as I just need someone new to talk to.” They began walking. “Your friends don’t listen to you?” “Well, up here it’s pretty much just Lance. He’s a good friend, but we’ve known each other for such a long time, it just doesn’t feel right to change the nature of our relationship and the sort of things we talk about, just all of a sudden. There’s a sort of status quo... Established boundaries about what we talk about and what we don’t.” “All unspoken, I’m sure.” Paul seemed to get his bearings and began steering them toward downtown, where the most avant-garde architecture and the most diverse eateries were located. “I know the kind.” “So, yeah. Whenever he tries to talk about it, it just doesn’t feel right, or it doesn’t go anywhere and turns into an argument about nothing. With you, the other day, I know we weren’t talking about much, but there aren’t any limitations on what sort of friendship we might have. It just feels different.”

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Teel McClanahan III “You aren’t going to stop being Lance’s friend, are you? You aren’t one of those one-friend-at-a-time kind of guys...” “No, I couldn’t. Not after all we’ve been through. He’s the only person I really have left from before...” Brady didn’t want to finish his sentence. “From before the zombie outbreak, right?” Paul still didn’t want to talk about the event with anyone who didn’t remember it. “Not exactly, but in a way, yes. There’s something else. I can’t say what it is, but I know it’s there, somehow superimposed over and then erased from my memories of what happened in Denver.” “The tallest one, there, is City Hall,” said Paul, avoiding the subject. “Why is it shaped like that? I mean, it’s amazing that it’s able to stand up at all, and those curves...” “It’s letters, actually. It spells out ‘City Hall’ from top to bottom in a phonetic alphabet some of the citizens use. A real feat of engineering, that.” “Huh.” “Doesn’t seem very practical, does it?” “Nope.” “So...” Paul tried to think of a tactful way to get Brady talking on a track that would be helpful to him and not get too near the event. After going over it with Mary, Paul was still grappling with the whole thing, himself, and wasn’t sure he could really explain it properly. “Does your life here seem more like a dream, or a nightmare you can’t wake up from?” “Heh,” Brady chuckled apathetically, “not like that. I mean, I’m out of it, but it’s more like sleepwalking, when I notice it, because I basically lose time.” “Like a black out, or more like an alien abduction?” “Again, not really like either. More like I’m somehow outside of my own body, watching myself live my life. As though all my own sensations were coming to me second hand, across a vast chasm. Then, if something snaps me out

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Forget What You Can’t Remember of it -which isn’t very often- or when I suddenly notice it isn’t as severe as it used to be, my memories of what I did and saw and heard melt quickly, but there’s not really anything about it that really differentiates it as either a dream or a nightmare or even real sleepwalking.” “Huh.” Paul couldn’t identify personally or exactly with Brady’s experiences, but somehow understood him, in a way. “Are you experiencing this disassociation from reality right now?” “No, I,” Brady paused to consider whether what he was saying was true. He stopped walking, and stood in the street for a moment looking down at his body and back up to the world around him. He held his right hand up in front of his face, staring intently at it. “I’m trying to decide if it feels like I’m staring at my own hand or if I’m watching me stare at my own hand.” Paul was now also staring intently at Brady’s hand, trying to more consciously notice his own awareness of perception. “Though just being present enough to be able to think about the difference is probably both a sign that I’m not experiencing it, and what truly surreal experiences even its memory allows me now to have.” “Truly.” Paul was now staring at his own hand and contemplating the separation between perception and awareness as though for the first time. “Consciousness itself is clearly not mere eyes and ears and instincts, but the thought of being able to be conscious of one’s own consciousness is a sort of Klein bottle with no boundary, zero volume, and which despite seeming to be immersed in the visible world always keeps some critical part in a higher plane of being, beyond our grasp.” Brady now took his turn to stare at Paul, though more like an examination of another’s sanity than one’s own perceptions. Brady stood there, staring at Paul staring at his own hand, apparently deep in thought, then spoke. “I have no idea what you just said.”

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Teel McClanahan III “What?” Paul looked up to Brady, as though coming out of a trance. “Hey, don’t worry about it. Just thinking about... Well, it doesn’t matter.” Paul looked around, tried to decide which direction to go next. “You wanna get a bite to eat? Maybe we can talk over food.” “Sure. What are you in the mood for?” “I kinda wanted to try that Orc-Thai fusion place run by a laser welding robot and a biorganic chemist. Mary always says she doesn’t like Thai when I suggest it, but I think she doesn’t want to try Orc food, whether or not it’s been fused with traditional Thai recipes.” “I had no idea... What do Orcs eat? And what do robots and chemists know about -wait. Is the chemist an Orc, or maybe Thai?” “I’m not sure, I think he just wanted to try new ways of creating food, and worked with the robot to develop new techniques for cooking each dish with lasers.” “The food is cooked with lasers? And created by a chemist?” “Almost all the meat in Skythia is grown in labs, Brady. This guy’s just trying to use new and innovative techniques, and showing off with unusual recipes.” Paul pulled out his handheld and searched for the restaurant’s profile even as he led Brady toward it. “Here, look at its profile; nearly all positive reviews.” “I’m not opposed to it. Are they popular? Do you think it’ll be crowded?” “I’ve just made us a reservation, and noted that we’d prefer quiet seating, if available. Looks like they’ll be able to accommodate us easily, since we’re at the tail end of the lunch rush.” “You already heard back from them?” “Sure, an AI hostess can do more than one thing at a time, you know.” “Sure.”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “And if you hate the food, maybe you can slip out of full awareness and just watch yourself eating it, as though across a vast distance, only to forget ever having eaten it a little while afterward? A handy skill I think others might not mind having available.” “If only I could consciously turn it on and off like that, sure.” “I know it isn’t like that...” “Look, don’t worry about it, that’s not even what I wanted to talk about, really. I mean, that’s part of the problem, but there’s not a lot to say about it and less that can be done. I figure whatever happened during the time I was in Denver can’t be undone any more than all those people could be brought back to life or Mary’s innocence could be restored. What’s past is past, and in order to get my life back I’m going to have to have a life to get back.” “That certainly sounds like a good attitude, though I’m worried that you’re ignoring the real problem. Something has made you this way. This self-disassociation isn’t spontaneously occurring, a mental disconnect without cause. If you don’t work on figuring out what the cause is and then doing something about it, what’s to stop this condition from continuing?” “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.” Brady’s pace had quickened, his footfalls had become more forceful, and his eye contact nearly nonexistent. “I don’t know what caused it. I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know if it’ll come back or go on or fade away. Sometimes it feels like it’s easier to stand back and observe myself as though from outside my own being than it is to so much as see that there’s a problem. Or to remember whether this was what it was like before. Or even to try to pinpoint the first time I noticed it happening. I know what happened in Denver was terrible. The sort of thing people never forget, and I know I won’t. Every detail is still there, every horror, vivid and distinct in my mind’s eye. And I know that experience changed me for-

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Teel McClanahan III ever, in my gut, in my bones, deep down different, but that’s not the problem. That’s not this problem. This is something else. Something I can’t think clearly about, something that creates huge stretches of no memory and a disconnection even from the horrors of Denver, at its worst. This is an unnameable, unthinkable nothingness somehow wedging itself in between me and myself. Between me and my own life. What can you do about something like that except reach out and try to grasp life hard with both hands?” Paul didn’t answer right away, as they reached the restaurant just as Brady had finished speaking. They were seated straight away and began looking over the menu and the day’s specials in silence. They exchanged a few words as they tried to decide what to eat, what to drink, how to choose food when every possible option is entirely foreign to them, and then when their orders were placed and they were left alone again, neither one spoke for several minutes. Finally, Paul relented. “So you’re going to try to move on with your life, to try to build a new life worth being present for and worth holding on to? Anything particular in mind?” Brady smiled. “I’m going to build a doomsday device.”

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Chapter 18

“W

hich is what gave me the idea for a sort of doomsday device I’d like to try to build, myself.” “Paul, I know you’ve spent your entire life obsessed with your doomsday, but creating another one isn’t going to make you feel any better.” Mary was considering whether she might have to report Paul to the proper authorities as mentally unstable and a danger to himself and others. “Not that kind of doomsday device. Brady’s going to have the creating of doom and destruction pretty well covered with his project. He’s asked me for help, and I’m considering it, but what I’m really excited about is this other idea I had. I’m not sure I’ll have the free time to help Brady with his thing between working within the legislature, spending time with you, and then building my own doomsday solution.” “Which is what, exactly?” “Well, I’m not sure yet. It depends on what I find when I try to research the problem more closely. It’s possible that nothing will come of it, but perhaps I’ll be able to reproduce whatever sort of reality-altering force has changed the world and all records and memories of it, and maybe -if we’re lucky- I’ll be able to do something about reversing or diminishing it.”

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Forget What You Can’t Remember “Reversing doomsday? Altering reality? Are you saying you want to build a machine that can restore people’s memories?” “Maybe. Maybe more.” “More, how?” “Maybe restoring some of the people, places, and things that never existed as a result of this thing. Maybe creating a way to get rid of things in the same way. There must be some explanation for how it all happened, and I want to understand it.” “You are truly an obsessed man. Can’t you leave well enough alone and move on with your life? With a new life?” “Don’t you want your memory back? What about your family, your home town, your childhood? What if I could find a way for you to remember what has been taken from you? What if I could find a way to actually restore them to the world?” “Has it occurred to you that everything that’s happened has happened for a reason? Or that my life is better now than it was before, and I don’t want to look back? Even if you did build a device that could put things back the way they were before, I wouldn’t want to use it. I don’t know who would.” “I bet Brady would. And that psychiatrist’s other patients, all suffering enough from their memory loss to warrant therapy. I don’t doubt that any of the people who lost the opportunity to have ever lived would be grateful for the chance to live and breathe again.” “That’s the sort of reasoning militant anti-abortionists use to rationalize destroying the lives of those who disagree with them. Are you going to build a machine to bring all the aborted fetuses back to life, so they can have a chance to exist, too? What about all the children who were never conceived because of birth control? Wouldn’t they be grateful for the chance to live and breathe?”

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Teel McClanahan III “Those are hardly the same thing, Mary, and you know it. These people were alive, these places did exist, and months ago they were there, as real as you or I.” “What people? What places? Name one. Any one. One place that actually definitively existed before that doesn’t exist now. Any one person you used to know that you can’t remember any more.” “Obviously I can’t name names. I’ve forgotten the names. I’ve forgotten the people and the places, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t real before this happened.” “And your paranoid theories and pulp fiction thriller don’t mean they were.” “Are you saying you don’t believe the world has changed?” “I’m suggesting that there’s no way to know whether anything has changed or not. You can’t investigate the site of a city that was never founded, and not just because you can’t think of one’s name. It was never founded. It didn’t exist a couple of months ago, not any more. And if it did, who are you to say that all the ones we can’t remember aren’t in a better place, now? Perhaps they’re better off and can’t remember us.” “But I showed you the evidence! The database entries we can’t see, the novel about it all... And you, you were so effected by it when we first met you were hardly yourself. You hardly knew yourself, in fact. Are you dismissing that, now?” “When you met me I was at the tail end of the sort of experience that anyone would feel a little disconnected after. I killed people, Paul. Not just zombies, which are close enough that it’s not exactly an easy thing to go through, but people who hadn’t turned yet. People I had fought alongside or had been trying to rescue. As soon as they got bit, that was it. The Sergeant had been very clear on that point, and considering he farmed the monsters for years, we trusted him. We had to. You don’t know what it was like. You didn’t

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Forget What You Can’t Remember see the bodies, you didn’t have to see the bodies and know it was you that took their lives. You may have set foot on the ground in Denver, you may even have got a whiff of the stench of that place, but you didn’t go through what we went through, Paul.” Mary had tears running down her face, her eyes were red and fierce. “Yeah, sure, maybe something else happened while we were in Denver. Maybe it was the thing you wrote about in that novel and maybe it has something to do with the parts of our pasts we can’t recall. Maybe. But that doesn’t change the fact that there are better explanations for the way I felt and the way I feel right now. That doesn’t change the fact that I’m happy here in Skythia, that my future is bright, or that I care about you. And whether or not it’s true, I like to believe that everything has happened for a reason, and that includes the zombie outbreak, without which I couldn’t possibly be the person I am now, and that includes the parts of my life before I can’t remember, because if I had those memories I might not be the person I am now, I might not make the decisions and plans I am now, I might not want anything to do with you. So it doesn’t matter whether something happened or didn’t happen. Not to me. What matters is who I am now, what I’m doing with my life, and where I’m headed. I just wish you could see the world this way, Paul. I wish you could let go of a past that may never have happened and embrace the now, embrace who you are and strive toward who you could become.” Paul didn’t know how to respond. He’d tried his best to keep hearing her, not to let his mind do what it had done before and only hear the worst, hear what it expected. Paul felt like there was something he couldn’t understand and that Mary was doing her best to try to explain it, but it felt like she was missing the point. He knew, on some level, that feeling that way was probably a better sign that he was the one missing the point, but nothing he could extract from her words seemed to connect for him. All he really got from the exchange was that for some reason it really upset Mary that

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Teel McClanahan III he might want to try to recover something that was lost. He decided that he would have to work on it in secret. It would be significantly more difficult, but Paul didn’t want to upset her further and risk driving her away. He didn’t like to see her cry, but he was at a loss for how to comfort her, for what to say. He kept silent and just reached out and took Mary into his arms, pulling their bodies together in a gentle embrace. Mary literally cried on Paul’s shoulder. After a long while, when Mary’s breathing had returned to normal and her eyes had begun to dry up, Paul finally thought of something to say. “I’m sorry, Mary. I won’t mention it again.” “Thank you,” she responded, and he didn’t mention it to her again until it was already too late.

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“... W

hich is how we simulate scents for each of the different habitats.” “It smells right to me.” The Sergeant was actually quite impressed, though he had no intention of showing it. “But will it smell right to the animals? Some of the things you need to simulate are very subtle, like the difference between anger and fear in their prey.” "Oh, absolutely. The only habitat we have any question about is number nine. Other than that, which you'll have to decide for yourself how you want the smellscape designed, it's all based on real-world scent recordings. Besides myself, there are two Scyvrn on my team. Best olfactories in the industry. They haven't built a chemical detector yet that can out-smell a Scyvrn." "That's why I wanted your team working on this, Rudï. My research said you were the best. Frankly, before a couple of weeks ago, I didn't even know the Scyvrn existed. Now I don't know how I could have made this place a success without you." "Oh, we're glad to have something new and interesting to work on. Most of our work is so long and repetitive that it starts to become quite a grind before we ever reach the end of the line. Problem of thinking too grandly, I suppose.

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Forget What You Can’t Remember There's something to be said for such novel, yet practical applications of our technology. I'm sure the zoo will come calling as soon as they hear about your setup, and then we'll be back to repeating ourselves again." "Once the data is in the public record, won't they be able to simply reproduce it on their own? I thought that was part of the point of the public records of all Skythiandeveloped tech. I've been making a lot of progress from other people's work, myself." "Well, smell is such a delicate thing, and we're literally the only Scyvrn in town, that at the very least one of us will be called just to be sure the equipment is calibrated correctly. But really, this is another thing about Skythia that most residents have come to take for granted: Skythia is full of experts. Not only is their research and their finished tech part of the public record, but in most cases they still live here, and you can just send an email, make a call, or set up a meeting to have an expert on whatever subject you're interested in explain it to you. Or, in the case of installing and configuring complex, field-specific equipment, setting it up and showing you how it works. The thing about most experts that you have to realize is that most of us are only experts in one or a few subjects, and largely ignorant of anything outside our specialties. There just isn't time. So I'm not an expert in string theory yet, but there are plenty of physicists in Skythia who can help me set up equipment and teach me the basics to get me started using advances from that field in my own work." "You've contradicted yourself, I believe. The problem of time is why everyone can't be an expert in everything, and it also keeps people from being able to help everyone who has a simple question. If you had to take time out of your day every time someone asked 'Does this smell funny?', you'd never get any work done." "Sure, but I don't get those calls. Between the noses most species are born with and the automated chemical de-

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Teel McClanahan III tectors we've made widely available and easy to use, only the most cutting-edge and complicated scent queries come directly to my team. So a system like the one we're installing for you, which uses the very latest in scent reproduction and volumetric chemical detection to manage dozens of independent environments, each with millions of unique, simulated odor components is not exactly an off-the-shelf setup. When the zoo inevitably wants to do the same thing, they may try to simply retrofit your setup on theirs, but there are enough unique variations between your environmental constructions that they'll need scent experts to get it working accurately. Since there isn't a third or fourth party in Skythia with any call for such a setup, it probably won't ever become standardized." "That's all it takes to go from experimental and requiring expert assistance to a standardized system anyone can use? Three or four iterations?" "It depends on the technology and the experts, but that isn't an unreasonable assumption. If we could design an AI to build it out, and sufficient sensory apparatus that a trained Scyvrn wouldn't be needed to calibrate it, we might be able to standardize it in one or two iterations." Rudï tapped away at his handheld display for a moment. "Here, I've given you access to our secure data. You can see that we're working on those kinds of solutions, right now. We're using cutting-edge tools from quantum mechanics to try to determine where, beyond classic chemistry, the rest of scent comes from." "You think there's more involved than chemistry?" "Our experience has shown us that about ninety percent of scent information a trained Scyvrn can identify cannot be attributed to chemistry alone. There have been a lot of different theories about the true nature of scent, most of which have not borne much fruit. Right now we're investigating sub-atomics. When we're done with that, we're going

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Forget What You Can’t Remember to be taking on several new team members and investigating clairvoyance." "Clairvoyance? You think scent might be some sort of psychic power?" "Perhaps. We aren't willing to rule anything out without testing it. Scent is very strongly connected to memory. FMRI studies have shown that clairvoyance is nearly indistinguishable from memory in the brain. So we're going to study it." "Fascinating." "I think we're done here for today. You have the information you need for number nine, right?" The Sergeant nodded. "Good. Then there's just one more thing I'd like to discuss with you." "What's that?" "I heard you were organizing a competitive martial arts group." The Sergeant sighed. "That wasn't originally the idea, but yes. I've had a lot of people asking about it and I've agreed to put something together. You want your name on the list, when it gets started?" "I don't mean to be an imposition. It's just, I thought--" "Yeah, I know, word's been getting around. Every time I hear it, it's a little further from where I started." "What was your original idea?" "Originally? I just wanted to fight the most dangerous creatures in the history of the world. That's the point of this entire operation, I'm raising fierce predators so I can take them on, one on one, in cage fights. In addition to which, a lot of the most dangerous creatures are also people. Centaurs. Velociraptors. I'm trying to line up a griffon. The idea was single combat, unarmed, me against the most dangerous in the world. Apparently that tapped into something here in Skythia, though, because all of a sudden other people wanted to get in on the act. When Targyn, the

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Teel McClanahan III first centaur who agreed to fight me, heard I was trying to convince a couple of velociraptors to fight, he decided he wanted to fight dinosaurs, too. When Dr. Kim, from the cloning lab, heard about it, he wanted to know if I'd consider going up against a double black belt. On and on, until before I knew it I was putting together an organization through which dozens of people from Skythia and beyond could get into the ring and fight each other. What I want to know is, if there's this much demand for it, why hadn't anyone thought of it before?" "I... I don't know. I guess there's a sort of general impression that all Skythians are pacifists. Violence certainly isn't tolerated under the law, here. I assume you're getting some sort of special waiver for your activities?" "Actually, there's no need. You're aware that the law allows for consensual violence, right?" "What? No." "I thought all Skythians knew all the laws? Isn't that the point of the simplified legislation and the daily education programs?" "Well, yes, but..." "Alright, what if I told you that you probably thought of it as a guarantee of sexual liberty? Ring any bells?" "Sexual... Violence?" The Sergeant could see the light beginning to dawn in Rudï's eyes. "Ohh...!" "Right. So, since we don't want to limit people's freedom to express themselves sexually, Skythia has allowances for people to consent to having violence done to them. Anyone certified as a person can give their consent, just like any other legal matter. No need for a special waiver. In fact, because everything is recorded there's not even a need for more than verbal consent." "I guess I hadn't thought of it that way, before. Though, yeah, most legally binding agreements are verbal here; trust backed up by surveillance. The law is so strict about violence, I just assumed..." Rudï was lost in his own mind for a

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Forget What You Can’t Remember moment. "I wonder why no one has thought of doing this, before." "As creative as most Skythians are, you seem to miss a lot of opportunities and possibilities within the law. As far as the strict enforcement of anti-violence laws, that's a natural outcome of the same omnipresent surveillance that makes verbal agreements the status quo. You remove intent and prosecute on action. It's concrete. Provable. So is consent." "I see. So, no roadblocks on the way to starting the group." "Just that same factor of time. I only have so many hours in the week, and I'm trying to put this place together, which you've been very helpful with, I'm trying to start a zombie survival training school, I've got four years of civil service before I can apply for full citizenship, and now I'm also expected to put together an organizing body for regulating and arranging interdisciplinary competitions among a quite disparate selection of Skythians. I like keeping myself busy, and this is going to be a real challenge. Time itself may be the only worthy opponent I face in this." "Hasn't anyone offered to help? I could probably set aside some time myself, to get things off the ground." "I appreciate the offer, Rudï, and I'll be in touch when things really get under way, but even with everyone volunteering -perhaps largely because of the number of inexperienced volunteers- what we're going to need the most is strong, experienced leadership. Until I can find someone with more leadership skills than myself, that means me. I had a couple of guys I thought I could almost have trusted to do things right, but lost both of them to zombies. Guess they weren't as good as I thought. Goes to show I'm the only one I can trust to carry out my ideas, I suppose." Rudï shook his head disapprovingly, and the Sergeant read it as disapproving of his ineffective former colleagues rather than of himself.

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Teel McClanahan III "So, it may be a few weeks before you hear anything about it, but I'll be sure you're on the list, Rudï. Are you expert in some sort of Scyvrn martial art I don't know about?" "No, the Scyvrn don't have anything like that. We've always been able to smell our way out of conflicts. Me, I know Capoeira. With your permission, I'd also like to invite my trainer to contact you about joining." "That's fine. Then at least we'd have two people fighting in the same style."

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ob soared through the air, his eyes constantly scanning the world below, searching. In the broadest sense, Job was searching for his home. Realistically, Job didn't know what he was really searching for, but that didn't stop him from searching. With his superior vision, Job could fly miles above the ground and still make out details like ants crawling across the dirt or the words on the page of a book someone was reading far below. In the most present sense, Job was searching for a reason to descend from the safety and isolation of the clouds and the distance. Job couldn't remember a life before the searching. He hadn't noticed it at first. It had just felt normal to him to be searching. Searching for someone to save. Searching for injustice he could help to right. Searching for inscrutable mathematical conundrums to help resolve. Flying from place to place without staying anywhere too long. Helping the helpless. Sometimes helping someone escape being eaten by trolls, sometimes helping someone with their calculus homework, always maintaining his superhero persona as Fantastician, though using that name only sparingly. A sense of slight embarrassment and dissatisfaction with his superhero identity also seemed to come naturally to Job, and

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Forget What You Can’t Remember as he casually crossed the long distances between cities and towns, he tried to think of a better one. Trying to think of a new name became a welcome distraction to Job after it had begun to dawn on him that he literally couldn't remember a life before all this. It had started with something a young woman had said to him. 

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He had been flying through the forest at what he thought was his top speed, weaving between the trees and over boulders and under branches. He rationalized it in a couple of ways, telling himself it was good practice for tricky flying he might have to do during some daring rescue or escape later, telling himself that his super vision was not much use through a canopy of trees despite his ability to see across the entire spectrum of light from gamma rays and X-rays through the infrared to microwaves and radio waves. Really he just did it because it was awesome. The exhilaration of hundreds of near misses per second combined with the surety that his reflexes and abilities allowed such an extraordinary thing to be possible was a constant joy to him. This forest was ancient, dark, and deep. A thousand miles across if it was an inch, and twice as wide. If Job had had super hearing on par with his super vision, the things he would have heard going on in every nook and cranny and shadow of that forest might have been enough to cause him to turn back - or at least to fly far above the canopy, far beyond the reach of the malevolent darkness that hid there. As it was, his hearing seemed just able to compensate for the noise of the air rushing by his head at subsonic speeds, such that no matter how fast he was travelling he had roughly the same, average hearing ability. The speed at which he was moving through the trees was several times the speed of sound, and gaining.

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Teel McClanahan III Which is why, when he heard the scream for the first time, he couldn't identify exactly where it had come from. He stopped as immediately as he could, somewhere within a couple thousand feet of where he'd heard the noise, within a fraction of a second. He slowly rotated a full circle in the air, looking carefully in every direction for the source of the scream. He didn't see anything. He didn't see anyone. He began trying to retrace his flight path, slowly, watchfully, trying to hear anything beyond the constant sounds of the life of the forest and the wind in the leaves above. His feet, floating above the ground, broke no branch and crushed no leaves and thus the only sound Job made as he cautiously searched for someone in need was the soft, low noise of his own breathing. The branches all began to look the same, the tree trunks unfamiliar. His first pass had been so fast that Job had only barely had enough time to react to obstacles and avoid them, not nearly long enough to notice fine details and variations between them. Had he passed over this boulder and around that tree, or come from the direction of that shrubbery? A couple thousand feet of forest is a lot of ground to cover when you aren't sure which way to go. After a few minutes, Job was sure he was lost. Another several minutes and the constant noises of the forest seemed always to be just slightly loud and indistinct enough to obfuscate what he thought may have been another cry for help. When clouds passed overhead and turned the deep shadows of the forest floor into a strange and sudden dark of night, Job found himself hearing more than imagined cries for help. He was sure he could hear the scuttling and moaning and gnashing of sharp teeth by all the unnamed horrors that called darkness their home. He couldn't remember a time when he wasn't nigh invulnerable, but something about the place at a walking pace gave Job a feeling of impending doom. A second scream, undoubtedly real and undoubtedly bloodcurdling, reached Job's ear. He turned in the direc-

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Forget What You Can’t Remember tion of the sound and advanced cautiously. He still couldn't see anyone or anything other than a seemingly average patch of forest ahead of him. No vast spider webs, indicating an arachnid foe. No unusually felled trees, which could have been a sign of giants clumsily making their way. No obvious markings of wood nymphs or wood elves, which all the villages near the forest had assured him did not live in this wood. No large openings in the canopy above, which usually meant there were robots recharging below. No visible network of furrows and holes in the earth, ruling out most large subterranean adversaries. Job's uncertainty about the challenge he would be facing served to increase the tension and apprehension he felt in that dark, forboding place, alone with only a naked scream to comfort and guide him. Job noticed some motion in his peripheral vision, and as fast as he could snap his head in that direction whatever had moved could not be seen. He was getting close, he could feel it. Then, in the opposite direction, something else moved, but this time when he turned he caught a glimpse of something large disappearing behind the cool of a tree. Something warm, and not reflecting the visible spectrum. Job had only seen a brief infrared signature of a warm mass about the size of a small humanoid. He had no way to determine at first whether he had seen the screamer or the horror which had induced the scream. He flew immediately in that direction. There was nothing behind the tree. Nothing Job could see, anyway. Job punched the trunk in frustration, inadvertently failing to restrain his strength against his emotions. The tree split, broke, shattered, everything it had held above the point of impact shivered, swayed, then swung down toward Job like a giant gavel trying to get his attention. Job easily slid out of the way through the startled air, but several other things in its path were neither so nimble or lucky. A couple of trees, countless insects and other small life living on and in these trees, and one invisible creature which

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Teel McClanahan III had been hiding in the branches of one of these trees. As it fell, pulled to the Earth under the full weight of the broken tree, the creature screamed. Job knew immediately that the scream he had heard had not been made by this one. This one's scream somehow seemed to encapsulate both a low, ugly gurgle and a louder moan with a high speed vibrato, like unto a somehow both wet and electronic sound at once. Job moved quickly once his mind had processed what was happening, flying around the tree's path of destruction and under it in the direction the thing's scream was coming from. He still could not see anything obviously there, though later experience would show him that he'd probably been able to make out a slight shadow of the thing against the background radiation to give him a better idea of where to reach out for it. He did just that, flying with speed and precision perhaps slightly more than his flight through the forest had required, grasping at a creature he could not see by following its scream and then darting out from under the collapsing tree. As soon as Job had felt the impression of weight and additional inertia that meant he had found his target, the tone of the thing's scream changed from something horrible to something surprising. By the time he released its weight safely to the ground nearby, the thing had fallen silent again. Job didn't know what to say, or what to do now. He stood there, looking at a thing he couldn't see, listening for a scream he couldn't hear, wondering whether the thing would feel threatened or grateful about what he'd just done. Job even began to wonder whether the invisible thing had simply run off as soon as it was out of his grip and whether he'd ever find out who or what had been screaming at all. He was about to take off, fly straight up and out of the trees' cover to get his bearings, when he felt something being placed in his arms. He couldn't see anything. Nothing standing there to hand the bundle to him, nor the bundle itself. He could feel

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Forget What You Can’t Remember it, large, heavy, and sticky in his arms. Knowing where the edges of it were generally by feel, Job could vaguely make out a slightly warm infrared profile of the bundle, but no real detail. Within seconds of the bundle being put in his care, Job heard a noise moving away in the distance. It was a call of some sort, high and loud and with a similar high speed vibrato which sounded mechanical or electronic to Job's ear. Then, as if intentionally to distract him from considering what had made the sound or where it was headed, the bundle in his arms shifted slightly. Job shook it slightly, and it moved again. It was alive. Job attempted at first to investigate, by touch, what he had been given while it was still in his arms, but it was too large, heavy, and awkward to make much headway. He floated around, the bundle moving slightly as he searched, until he found a soft, mossy place to set it down. Job was glad to see the weight of the thing make a visible depression in the moss and undergrowth. He finally began a thorough investigation of the bundle which had been handed to him over a full minute earlier, laying hands on it, patting it down, all the way from one end to the other. It was roughly ovoid in shape, though much longer than it was thick. The whole outside of the bundle felt slightly sticky, though even extensive handling left no sticky residue on his hands or arms. As he ran his hands over it, the texture reminded him of spooled thread, only softer and smoother than silk or any other fabric he could recall. Job thought that perhaps it had been some sort of giant, invisible, and unusually intelligent spiders he had found here, and that the bundle wrapped up in front of him was their prey, sealed up and ready to eat. Prey so fresh it was still moving. Job had always been good at math on paper, at solving complex formulae quickly and with great care to detail, but sometimes when presented by his genius mind with a clear solution to a real life conundrum he was not as quick to put it all together. This was one of those cases, and it actually

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Teel McClanahan III took Job another minute or two of trying to figure out what it was and how its invisibility might work before he realized that if this was the creature's prey, and if it was so fresh it was still moving, that this was probably what had screamed originally, and that he ought probably to get it out of there before it wasn't so fresh any more. His hands began tearing at the tough, tiny threads of invisible silk, trying to make some sort of headway through the ineffable barrier before him. It took what Job knew was his super strength to break the threads, and it was slow going, but gradually he began to see more and more of a heat signature coming from inside the bundle. From the general shape of the bundle, Job decided which end he thought would probably be the head if the thing inside were humanoid, and he concentrated his efforts there. After quite a lot of concerted effort, more and more of the various spectra of light began to become visible through the invisibility of the bundle, and soon a shadow of a humanoid skeleton confirmed Job was working at the head end. It wasn't until he began breaking through the final layer of silken obfuscation, exposing the captive's bare skin to the cool air of the forest, that the visible spectrum of light finally allowed him to see what he had been working for. That glimpse of cheek and nose further invigorated his efforts and reminded him of the care he needed to take so as not to injure the one he was trying to save, and soon he was pulling gossamer strands of his inability to see her away from her small, pink, gasping lips and her bright, shining, inquisitive eyes. She took a few deep, grateful breaths as he continued pulling and tearing away at the countless tiny threads encasing the rest of her body and then her tiny, apparently floating and disembodied face asked Job the question that would stick in his mind for months afterward. "Where did you come from?"

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She probably hadn't meant much by it at the time. She probably never knew how deep his inability to answer that question had cut. Not only his inability to answer the question, but his failure to remember why he couldn't answer her question except in the most immediate and literal sense. Not to mention the strange conundrum of how long he might have gone on without even realizing he didn't know. How long he had already gone on. He'd answered her literally, had escorted her to her village, had had many a conversation with her as their time together had passed, but never did he mention to that young woman the enigma she had awakened within him. He couldn't find a mathematical formula to determine the answer, couldn't use brute force to beat the answer out of the world, all he could do was wonder. And wander. And search. So Job searched for home, and wondered whether he'd know it when he found it.

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Chapter 21

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fter rescuing the young woman, Job's mind became more and more occupied with his inability to answer such a simple question. After a few days of going around and around in his own head, trying to recall anything before the prior month or two, the extent of his existential crisis expanded. This time, rather than finding himself undone by someone innocent of their assault, Job's further unraveling came quite intentionally by the words of a villain. 

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It had seemed a simple enough situation at first. A group of five masked robbers had stormed into a Kwytzwik Temple, brandishing Unholy Lightning Swords in their hands, wearing what looked like modified AK-47's on their backs, and mercilessly slaughtering any Dō Kwytź that made a noise of protest or that got in their way. A swipe through the air, the crackle of that black bolt of energy's apparent excitement to ride blackened steel through blue flesh and loose lavender blood, then the sound of meat collapsing against stone and the slight sizzle of seared skin. They made their way past the prayer stalls and through the Market of Souls

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Forget What You Can’t Remember where vice and virtue, sin and sainthood were made visible through each person's Cha'shyk Rěal and then bought, sold and traded via ancient Cha Kwytź whose sonorous ritual intonations kept the Market filled with a sense of calm even as the murderous burglars made the traders' negotiations for balanced souls suddenly more relevant. They made their way deeper into the Temple, moving beyond the Sanctification Waterfall and the Listening Singularity without pausing either to be cleansed or to confess, and finally they reached the entrance to the chamber they had been seeking after. By the time they had sheathed their Unholy Lightning Swords, those they hadn't killed on their way in were already running through the streets in a blind panic, generally sounding their alarm. Before all five of them had their automatic weapons off their backs and into their hands, Job was on his way to the Temple. It was by providence alone that Fantastician had happened to have stopped in that particular town on that particular day. It was the sort of intervention that no amount of planning and organization could have accounted for on the part of the thieves, and it turned out to be the sort of interaction that Job would later wish he would have been able to avoid as well. The thieves knew that the entrance to the chamber at the center of the Temple could only be crossed by the Ka Kwytź alone, but this was not their first Temple job. They had come prepared. They had done their homework. They began to fire, all focusing their aim on the same small area of the large convex surface the inner chamber presented them. Bullet after bullet was accelerated to near-sonic speeds by their automatic weapons and hurled at the entrance to the chamber. These bullets had several strange properties. Most of them just continued accelerating toward the barrier after leaving the weapon, but some of them slowed down instead, first sort of floating gradually up and then randomly speeding up and slowing down and ricocheting around the room at a constantly changing rate of speed. Enough of them

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Teel McClanahan III reached the barrier to create the desired effect. The thieves watched the luminescent barrier first dim, then darken, then divide and actually begin to crack open, just as those in the other Temples had done. Everything was on schedule and going according to plan. Then, before the crack in the barrier was wide enough to allow more than a quick peek through, their plan ran into an unexpected snag dressed in royal blue and lime green. Fantastician had moved quickly but cautiously through the Temple, paying close attention to the wreckage and carnage he flew by on his way inward and upward to meet those responsible for it so he would have some idea of what threat awaited him. Job paused momentarily in his approach to respectfully step through the Sanctification Waterfall while uttering the Litany of Impurity required of any non-Kwytzwik before entering the Sanctuary. An instant later he was back in the air and back at speed, a bi-color blur circling the room both to get the thieves' attention and to assess the situation. He didn't know what to make of the oddly behaving bullets flying every which way at inconsistent speeds, but had felt a few strike his body as he'd passed between the invaders and the breaking barrier without breaking his skin, so Job ended up coming to rest in the air just in front of the focus of their fire. The bullets began bouncing off his chest and joining the other misbehavers floating around the Sanctuary, and the thieves almost immediately ceased firing. "Stop what you're doing and surrender," implored Job. Two of the masked intruders dropped their guns and drew their Unholy Lightning Swords. Job couldn't recall ever seeing a sword with a dancing bolt of lightning clinging to its length, nor any lightning which seemed to absorb rather than to give off light -across a wide swath of spectra, Job could see, well beyond merely absorbing visible light- until two such swords were suddenly being brandished toward his body.

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Forget What You Can’t Remember One of the others raised a hand, and the two bearing swords halted their advance. The masked figure spoke, asking, "Why are you doing this?" "I could ask you the same thing," replied Job. "Why don't you," asked the masked figure, his four masked companions with their weapons at the ready. "Without asking, how can you decide who to stop and who to help?" "You just murdered dozens of people, and unless I'm mistaken you've murdered hundreds of others at several Temples in recent weeks. It seems clear that you must be stopped." "Why? You are not Kwytzwik, you owe them no special allegiance. I know there has been no reward offered for our capture, and no Kwytzwik would press charges against us in any court with relevant jurisdiction. So why are you doing this?" "I don't understand." Job wasn't generally involved in judicial proceedings or rewards beyond the occasional warm meal. Most people seemed to think his behavior was quite noble. "Exactly." The thieves' speaker gave a signal to the others and they began gathering the stray bullets from the air with nets like butterflies. "So why don't you ask? Would you rather not understand?" Job had two main strengths: solving abstract mathematical problems and saving the day with his superior strength, speed, and senses. He couldn't recall ever having to navigate the space in between, and his mind was reeling. "I didn't... I mean, I uhh..." Job tried to rally his thoughts and stay focused. "I'm a mathematician! Of course I want to understand!" Job was bolstering his confidence with the words. "What I understand about this situation is that you're a bunch of murderers, and it's my moral duty to stop you." "Moral duty? Is that why you're doing this? You still haven't answered my question." The thief 's masked eyes did

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Teel McClanahan III not leave Job, but they knew the others were nearly done collecting stray bullets and feeding them into their weapons again. "And if it were your moral duty, I'd have to ask you whose morals you were referring to. I doubt it's Kwytzwik morality." Job had to admit to himself that despite some vague knowledge of their beliefs and the Litany of Impurity, he did not know the specifics of their moral code. Job couldn't tell, because of the masks they wore, whether the five killers now back in formation in front of him were any more Kwytzwik than he was. Not an inch of skin showed, and even if it had been blue, the Kwytzwik were not the only blue-skinned people in the area. Job began to wonder what was really going on. No one had questioned him, before. They'd either surrendered immediately, like the invisible forest creatures and most common criminals, or they'd fought tooth and nail until Job found a way to completely subdue them. At least, as far as he could remember, they hadn't. Yet these five had stopped firing on him as soon as he was in the line of fire, had treated him civilly, and seemed to be asking relevant questions about the nature of their interaction. More than that, there didn't seem to be anyone else coming to try to stop them from doing whatever it was they were doing. "What are you trying to do, here?" "Ah, now he's paying attention." The others laughed briefly, knowingly. "If you wouldn't mind stepping aside, we'd be glad to show you what we're trying to do. I'm sure you haven't heard anything other than the body counts at our earlier interventions, but I assure you that what we're doing is much more important than a little spilled blood." "Why should I trust you?" "Why should you trust anyone? Do you base your trust only on appearances, or should trust be based on something deeper, more meaningful? Surely you know that the mere appearance of innocence does not an innocent make, yes? Well, the same goes for the appearance of evil."

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Forget What You Can’t Remember "Fine, so if I'm to accept that there ought to be a more meaningful basis for placement of trust than first appearance, why should I trust you?" "Because it costs you nothing. Our guns have no effect on you, we cannot outmatch your speed, and I'm willing to wager that neither you nor I knows the effect of our swords on your flesh. So, if we are trustworthy, your trust is appropriate, and if we are not, you can still stop us easily." Job considered the matter for a moment, checking and double-checking the logic of this problem in his head, and then floated aside to see what they were doing. "Thank you." The masked thief approached the barrier and placed a hand against its still dimly-glowing presence. "Here, touch the entrance, see what we've been shooting at. It's alright." Job tried to touch the surface of the barrier and found that it had no definite surface. It was soft, pliant to a point, but seemed to push back with equal measure to the effort he put into touching it. "It's a sort of energy barrier. Only one being in the world can pass through it to the inner chamber. There's one in every Kwytzwik Temple. Until this year, no one besides the Ka Kwytź had seen what's inside." The figure pulled a bullet out of the weapon he was holding and physically pressed it into the barrier. The light dimmed slightly and the bullet was smaller when it was pulled away. "Here, you try it." Job took the offered lump of metal, which felt strange in his hand -unnaturally light, and like it might slip away suddenly- and pressed it into the barrier. He could feel that where his hand was pushed away from the barrier, the bullet seemed to be able to push back. Job stopped pushing and found that whatever was doing the pushing back seemed also to consume the material of the bullet. "With these, we can open the entrance to the inner chamber and see what's inside. Do you want to see what's inside, or do you want to go on pretending you know why you're trying to stop us and just live in ignorance?"

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After that day, Job had only had more questions. After talking to the masked villains, after seeing what was on the other side of the Temple's inner entrance, after questioning the survivors a little more critically about their reaction to the entire situation, Job found himself with a lot to think about. Not just who he was and where he'd come from, but why he did what he did and where his morality had come from. He couldn't remember whether he'd been raised in any particular religion or in none. He couldn't remember who had given him moral guidance or on what place's law his instinctual code had stemmed from. For the first time, Job began to question the very idea of being a hero. He could suddenly see that it wasn't really a normal way to lead one's life. Most people didn't seem to go out of their way to help others, whether in immediate physical danger or just in need of some help with their homework. There were a few in each town, acting as guards, police, or vigilantes, but as he began to question himself he also began to question others more critically and he found that a lot of them weren't doing it because that's what they felt called to do. Most of them seemed just to like beating people up and getting paid for it. Job didn't know whether to be disgusted or self-doubting in response, but more and more he found himself lost in thought, trying to figure himself out. Trying to figure out why he couldn't remember. Trying to find other things he might not be able to remember but which hadn't yet been brought to his attention. He spent a lot of time alone.

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he life of a homeless superhero was a solitary one. The more Job thought about where he'd come from, who he was, and why he did what he did, the more his existence was transmogrified from merely solitary to downright lonely. Where he had been content before to wander aimlessly and help whoever happened upon his path he now wondered about the value of such a directionless existence. He wondered about why it hadn't bothered him to not have a home to return to or even a story about how he'd lost his home. He wondered about why it hadn't occurred to him that there might be more granularity in morality than mere black and white, right and wrong, hero and villain. Or even why he had assumed the role of a hero rather than the opposite. The deeper into thought he ventured, the broader a swath of missing memories and meaning he found he had, the harder and harder it was for Job to invest himself fully in what he did. At first it was only minor inconveniences to justice, like arriving a few moments late to the scene of an ongoing crime because he'd thought he'd seen someone he'd recognized as he'd been rushing to get there. Of course, it never was someone he knew, just another confused bystander. Soon the problems grew deeper, and Job was stopping in the midst

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Forget What You Can’t Remember of preventing a crime to consult with or retrieve a local authority who could clarify or enact the appropriate, legal, and moral response to the situation. Within a matter of weeks of the incident at the Temple, Job found himself questioning whether it was appropriate for someone with an apparently super-human grasp of mathematics to assist everyday mathematicians with their work. What was the ethical implication of solving a conundrum that has kept the best minds occupied for centuries within a few minutes' worth of thought? He never stayed in the same village or city long enough to put the local police or posse out of business, but Job knew there would be a limit to the number of proofs he could provide before the math and science communities spoke out against him. Then, in the midst of these increasingly unanswerable questions, Job came to a battlefield. Flying high overhead he wasn't sure what he was seeing, at first. Crowds of bodies, dust raised, he could see motion, but from a great height it was like unto the undulations of the trees in a wind; nonspecific, fluid motion of parts appearing as a whole. When Job drew down closer to the fighting, he could see thousands of armored figures clashing weapons against weapons, against shields, and deep into enemy flesh. There were over a dozen species and at least half as many different flags flying that Job could make out through the chaos and the dust, and he didn't recognize a single side's colors. For several moments he just hovered there in the air, watching the battle take place below him, unsure. He could see every detail when he tried, down to the size of a grain of sand and as far away as the horizon, but no matter how hard he stared at the carnage, Job couldn't see which side of this fight was in the right. He decided to ask someone. Job flew down into the thick of battle, grabbed a single warrior, and carried him up into the sky. "What are you fighting for," he asked the bewildered fighter, knowing it would be unlikely that he would get a

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Teel McClanahan III complete answer. The warrior struggled, cursed, and slashed at Job ineffectually with his battle axe before realizing he wasn't going to be let go until he answered. Job was not satisfied with his answer, and after safely returning the creature to the battlefield where he would most likely be killed within moments, he grabbed another fighter, this one wearing another set of colors. Again, he received hard knocks, a beautifully original string of obscenities, and eventual answers to his questions. Again and again, he grabbed fighters. Every side had different justifications for making war, and even within a single group Job found that different species cast the issues at hand in significantly different lights. Everyone seemed to have a convincing conviction and a rational justification that their own side, their own view, was totally in the right. The lowest ranking grunts' explanations were less thought out and less nuanced than those of more experienced soldiers and their commanders, but everyone Job laid hands on knew what they were fighting for. At least one side's arguments left literally no room for a diplomatic solution; they had a well-developed, historically, religiously, and medically backed argument for the genocide of one of the other groups. Those who remained of that second group were the ones who had refused voluntary euthanasia, and they had literally asked for this fight. Several of the other groups were allied with one of these sides or the other, but many were second-tier allies and enemies, fighting because their enemies were fighting or because their allies were threatened, and quite a few seemed to be mercenaries who were present because they liked fighting and killing and getting paid to do what they love. Who was in the right, here? Job's instincts told him that the species committing genocide must be in the wrong. He was sure that, in the history he couldn't remember, he'd had a conviction against the outright extinction of any species, sentient or not. The problem was that he couldn't remember why, and he had truly begun to wonder why about

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Forget What You Can’t Remember so much he had reached a point where he didn't want to take any actions without a clear understanding of why he was taking them. Was assisting one race or species to wipe out another ever ethically justifiable? More than half of the combatants present believed it was either justifiable or at the least acceptable for the right price. Even the majority of the species being wiped out had agreed, and only a few hundred had avoided painless deaths at clinics to face violent death on this bloody battlefield. Most of them had apparently also clearly stated that they did not expect to win, or even to survive, just that they had wanted the opportunity to go out fighting rather than to silently accept the extinction being forced upon them. Job looked on, watching the hordes killing each other, and pondered the value of individual life. If someone wanted to go out fighting, and there were warriors willing and ready to give them that chance, whose business is it to try to stop them? But if not anyone else's business, then what of the allies fighting alongside the suicidal lost cause these people represented? Were they in the wrong for trying to give a people who had come to accept their inevitable end and who had chosen the specific means of their execution a chance to avoid that very fate? Were they wrong for drawing out this process from minutes of desperate fighting into hour after hour, perhaps day after day of grueling bloodshed and pain, turning a still-relatively-quick method of execution into a horrible and devastatingly drawn-out ordeal? What about the value of the lives of all those who died on this battlefield who were from other species? Job could see how their deaths might seem acceptable, that they'd chosen to put them on the line for this fight and had thus accepted that risk for themselves, by their own personal standards. He could also see that life was a precious thing, not to be wasted over the political struggles of peoples one has never met except in battle. Job could see no easy answer to the question that faced him, no clear right or wrong side to ally

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Teel McClanahan III with, below. Still, he wanted to take action. To save as many lives as possible. He set his mind on the task, made sure he knew who was who, which colors, which species were which. He surveyed the surrounding countryside in a nearly-instant thousands of miles per hour sweep around the sky. And then, in a blue and green blur of motion, Job sprang into action. Down into the battle, grabbing fighters two at a time when possible, shooting up into the sky and out, away from the battlefield. The speed, the acceleration, the shock alone, each sufficient to knock out most of the warriors, combined to pacify most of his quarry before he set them down again. He carried each one or two of them in a slightly different direction, isolating them miles from the field of battle, and from anyone of a different group. Then Job near-instantly burst back up into the sky and down into the battle to grab another one or two. Every several seconds, Job blurred into and out of the battle, rapidly thinning its numbers. He didn't want to move too fast and kill anyone by taking them out of harm's way too quickly, so it took about an hour of effort before he'd gotten enough of them out of there that it changed the course of the battle, and before anyone started trickling in from wherever he'd left them. Then he altered his tactics a bit, moving faster, but carrying people shorter distances. Pop, pop, pop, almost like teleportation to outside observers -and indistinguishable, to those being moved- the fighters whose battle this was not of direct and personal meaning to disappeared from the thick of things and reappeared a few hundred yards away with the wind knocked out of them. Faster and faster, Job moved, until it appeared that he was in a dozen blurred places at once, blue and green streaks filling the air above the blood soaked field like some strange firework throwing bodies this way and that. When Job reached the point where only the two factions central to the conflict remained on the battlefield, the space between those trying to get back into the fight and

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Forget What You Can’t Remember those fighting was only dozens of yards and he spent most of his effort from then on just holding back the angry wall of warriors straining against his superior speed and strength. Around and around the inside of that circle he went, now a blue and green ring of blurred motion defining the edge of that inward-pressing horde. A few minutes later it was easier to hold them back as those in front realized they weren't going to get through. A few minutes after that a triumphant noise began to arise from the middle, drawing an echoing sound of triumph from about half the outer crowd. A horn blew, piercing through the uproar and triggering its increase in volume. Job stopped and stood aside as the general in charge of the forces who had fought on the side of the nowextinct species rode a small duhrik into the area Job had been protecting. The various armies fell silent to hear what the general would say, and Job hoped it wouldn't be another call to arms. Though the message was one Job appreciated, and the speech eloquent and the speaker charismatic, Job left as soon as he got the gist of it. The general, clearly an intelligent man and a natural leader, presented the unusual and unexpected outcome of the battle as a great and glorious victory for all sides. He had a way of painting the story of the blood-painted field where so many fewer had died than would have if Job hadn't intervened in a way that would send everyone but the mercenaries home satisfied and proud of their contributions and of the outcome. Job didn't need a politician to tell him that whatever is expedient is what is just, and he wasn't convinced that what he'd done was the most just course of action, but he doubted that any other answers would be forthcoming from those who'd survived the day. He flew away as far and as fast as he could, and in the envelope of silence he experienced at supersonic speeds, Job pondered the situation. For days he just flew and flew and flew, thinking to himself, not looking down, searching only in his mind.

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Chapter 23

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he next time Job was both aware of his surroundings and approaching any kind of sign of civilization, he was continents away from the genocide he had played a part in. With his extreme vision, Job had seen the sprawling mountain town as soon as it had crossed the horizon, but aside from heading in its general direction, Job didn't pay it much mind until he was within a couple of miles. Job didn't pay it much mind until he was within range of its stench. Job was not aware of having any sort of super-smelling power, but from the intensity of the odor that began to overwhelm his other senses, he began to wonder if perhaps he'd discovered a new ability. But then he looked closer. The streets below him, even to the outskirts of the city, were filled with the bodies of the dead. From a distance, while only looking casually in the city's direction, Job had seen motion, people walking here and there, and hadn't thought anything was amiss. After experiencing that horrible smell, Job started looking closer. The people walking the streets were almost as bad off as the bodies rotting in the gutters. The stench of death that hung over the city was coming not from a simple cultural difference -Job had been to cities where the religious activities of its residents kept the air rancid with one incense or another- but from the

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Forget What You Can’t Remember bodies, both laying on the ground and those walking around, festering and putrefying in the heat of the sun. Job had the idea of zombies somewhere in his mind, though it was like so many other things he couldn't quite grasp any more, and he couldn't remember how he knew them, or if he'd seen them before, and if so, when. Job's flight had slowed as he'd got closer and closer to the horror show the remains of this deceased city represented, and -trying not to breathe- he flew slowly toward the city's downtown, taking in every detail he could about what had happened there and what was then going on. Job was relieved, somewhat, to see that there seemed to be no sign of life remaining there. Only the dead remained citizens here, and they had been dead for several months at least. Those who still walked, crawled, or writhed were weather beaten, half-starved husks of their former selves, and the motionless dead were devolving into puddles, mush, and mess with only protruding bones to identify most as recently human. What hadn't been eaten right away by the undead hadn't fared well when exposed to wildlife, microorganisms, precipitation and summer heat. Job tried not to think about how much worse the odor would be inside the city's structures, trapped and building up like poison gas, but even the thought of that was a welcome respite from having to think about ethics and morality in every situation. Faced with zombies, Job had no doubts about what was right. This was work he could really get behind, not have to worry about whether what he was doing was right or wrong, legal or unlawful, or whether it were an appropriate use of his powers. Zombies had wiped out the entire city. Job, upon surveying the city's downtown, found evidence that there had been a force of people who had tried to combat the zombies. Thousands of them had been killed, bodies stacked here and there and a lot of them around the perimeter of a football stadium he found downtown, but for what-

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Teel McClanahan III ever reason the job had not been finished. Job was glad to finish what had been started. He began, systematically, methodically, clearing the streets. First he gathered the undead, their heads practically falling from their bodies without real effort, the connective tissues not having fared very well in the months since they'd died. Job flew without concern for moving too quickly, without having to worry about the speed killing those he was moving, carrying zombie after zombie to what he learned was Mile High Stadium, stacking them as orderly as he could on the ground there. Up and down every street, out and out and out, until he stopped seeing zombies walking the streets. Then Job found a tanker truck full of gasoline that had been abandoned during the zombie outbreak, flew it to the stadium, and doused the stacked remains of the zombies in fuel. He double-checked that there was a safe zone around the stadium, removing a few half-dead trees from the area and adding them to the pyre before lighting it. The bodies burned easily and quickly; he knew to burn them in successive piles rather than filling the stadium to the brim and starting a never-ending barbecue of rotten flesh. Job monitored the burn, tried to keep burning embers from escaping the area and burning down the rest of the city, and between his super vision and super speed, the burning of the pyre went smoothly and without incident. Next Job began collecting the remains of the dead lying in the streets, beginning with the bodies stacked all around the stadium. This work was somewhat more difficult, somewhat more messy, and somehow more smelly than what he'd been doing before. Job concluded that either something about being a zombie slowed their rotting, or something about being partially eaten had speeded it. It seemed to Job that there were a lot more dead dead than undead in Denver, and before Job was satisfied with the clearing of the streets he'd done three more burns of the dead as large as the first.

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Forget What You Can’t Remember Then, with more a sense of duty to thoroughness than dread of the complexity and the inevitably worse odors he would be facing, Job began searching the insides of every building in town. As expected, Job ended up encountering more undead as he ventured into most places, and undead who -unexposed to the elements- were in much better shape than those he'd already destroyed. Some of them could even have passed for living people, they looked so good. Job had known, and then verified through experience, that zombies couldn't use language. He made sure to try to address every near-to-life shambling being he encountered with a greeting and inquiry of some kind, always hoping for -though never really expecting- an intelligent answer. Occasionally a zombie would moan or groan in response, but none of them were really still alive. Job was careful, systematic, and methodical, going into every room of every structure, looking for the dead and the undead and removing them to the stadium to be burned. Office buildings, government offices, homes and stores and manufacturing plants and every address on the map had to be checked and cleared. Finding hidden rooms, basements, closets and the like posed little difficulty to Job, who could see the hidden structure of everything in the background radiation of the world. Job had spent about ten days clearing the streets, but in the interest of minimizing property damage he'd had to slow down while navigating the insides of things. Not to mention all the time he spent unlocking doors. Job, wanting to do the most good and the least harm and still feeling refreshed to find a situation he could take care of without the sort of complex moral quandaries that had plagued him, didn't want to just go around knocking doors off their hinges or breaking through windows to get to the dead. He spent several hours reading up on lock picking and lock smithing and borrowed a dead locksmith's tools and spent a couple of days practicing before he was much good

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Teel McClanahan III at getting doors open without incident. He knew he could have opened any door in town with a forceful push, but Job took the extra time and made extra effort to leave locks, doors, and door jambs intact as he broke into every single locked location in town. Job worked day and night, first clearing the dead out of each building, then returning to do a thorough cleanup of any mess the rotting dead had made by rotting there and as much mess as the undead had made by bumbling around as he could. He cleaned out refrigerators and cupboards of rotten food while he was at it, trying to leave each home, business, grocery store or such in a basically occupiable condition. Through experience, Job learned how to clean walls, floors, and surfaces of every kind of the worst sorts of putrid messes there were. He learned how to patch carpets and, when he couldn't find any matching carpet, he also learned how to re-carpet entire rooms and entire buildings. He got a lot of practice repainting rooms. He became very familiar with the locations of the nearest landfills as he made trip after trip, carrying loaded garbage trucks through the air to save time and fuel versus driving them. There was a lot of mess to clean up, a lot of undead to locate and destroy, a lot of dead to take care of, as well, and Job got into a rhythm doing it all. It felt good to work with his hands, and it was nice to have real-world mathematical problems he could ponder without having to worry about other mathematicians' work being made redundant. It was satisfying to get through with an entire apartment block and know that every person who had been there was now taken care of and every apartment in rentable condition, if and when people decided t0 return to Denver. Keys made for every door he couldn't find keys for, all organized and laid out neatly in the manager's office, and the keys to that clearly labeled and in the city's planning offices downtown. With no one there to muddy the waters, no government, no police, and all the cities' residents apparently dead or given

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Forget What You Can’t Remember up on the place, Job was able to just do whatever felt right to him. He really began to feel good again. It took him several months, and he could feel winter coming on, but Job finally reached the end of it all. Denver was clean, all its suburbs and otherwise nearby cities were clean, and thorough sweeps of the surrounding countryside no longer turned up a single wandering zombie. Job prepared to burn the last batch of bodies in the stadium by double-checking the entire city. He flew around buildings, spied through bushes with his extranormal vision, looked under bridges and in storm drains and sewers and otherwise re-traced every inch of the city to be sure he hadn't missed a thing. Then, before lighting the final of the funereal pyres of the Denver zombie outbreak, Job grabbed a backhoe and flew it to the stadium parking lot, planning on interring the ashes and bones under the dirt of the field. Job then lit the fire and watched silently as it burned, trying not to think about what he would do next, where he would go, or how he would deal with whatever complex social and ethical issues he inevitably found there. Occasionally he had to stop a soaring hot ember from escaping, but by this time Job had pretty well mastered the construction of a massive yet safely burning stack of tens of thousands of human corpses, so he was largely engrossed in just thought and the sound of the roaring fire for the hours it took to burn down. Consequently, Job didn't notice the dark shape drawing nearer and nearer in the sky over the city. He basically didn't look away from the fire, so even when the huge disc was floating right over the stadium, Job remained unaware. Even as the commerce center was lowered, closer and closer to where Job was hovering, he didn't think to look up - the sky there was so familiar to him, and so empty, that he rarely looked up at all any more. Except then the Sergeant's voice came over some sort of external loudspeaker system, and suddenly the commerce center, dangling from the bottom

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Teel McClanahan III of Skythia by what appeared to be merely a thread, had Job's full attention. "Hello, there," boomed the Sergeant's voice. He was standing in an open doorway to the lower floor of the commerce center, which was still about half a kilometer above the stadium and somewhat off center, to keep it out of the path of the rising smoke. "Would you mind joining us up here?" Job flew up to meet them, in the door, and set foot on the floor just inside the door, next to the Sergeant. He put out his hand and they shook, the Sergeant's grip actually strong enough to put a squeeze on Job's nigh invulnerable hand. "Pleased to meet you. You can call me Sergeant." "I'm known as Fantastician," said Job, using his stillunsatisfactory superhero name, but speaking it as though with real confidence in it. "Fine, fine. Are you responsible for this," asked the Sergeant, indicating with a broad wave of his arm not only the bonfire in the stadium but the entire city of Denver. "If you mean taking care of the zombies, then yes. If you mean to ask how the zombies came to destroy all life in Denver, I couldn't tell you," Job answered honestly. "They were all already dead when I arrived. Well, some were still undead. Mostly they were just dead, though." "I see." The Sergeant paused in thought for a long moment, then put a leading hand on Job's arm and directed him into the large room, toward the crowd of people there. "I'd like you to explain what you've done, if you don't mind, to my students, uhh... Fantastician, was it?" The Sergeant didn't look to him for an answer, he just kept leading Job into the center of the crowd. Job noticed that the entire group seemed to be well armed, most carrying at least one large sharp or blunt object and with a wide variety of firearms strapped to their waists and in holsters on their chests and backs. "You see, I run a zombie survival training course, and these are my students. They've been training, some of them for months now, and this was supposed to be the day

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Forget What You Can’t Remember they all finally got to face some real zombies. To kill real zombies instead of just simulated ones, and to do their part to help clean up the streets of Denver. Go ahead and explain to them what you've done." As Job tried to think of an appropriate thing to say to this clearly bloodthirsty and well-armed mob, he couldn't help thinking to himself that he should've known it was too good to be true. Even doing what was clearly the right thing to do was not always for the best, because it prevents other people from being able to contribute and do their part to make things right. Instead of taking away just mathematicians' right to solve their own problems, Job had taken away this group's right to take care of Denver's zombies. Job was beginning to sour altogether on the idea that it was possible for him to do what was right in any absolute sense of right and wrong.

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Chapter 24

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o you can't be hurt at all?" The Sergeant punched Job hard in the gut without warning. Job didn't even exhale, didn't even tense up. "Well, certainly not by blunt force trauma, like a fist or a club, no." "What about knives, claws, teeth, and the like? What about bullets?" The Sergeant appeared to be scanning the crowd for a weapon to try out against Job's claims of invulnerability. Job responded quickly, hoping to avoid a mess. "Don't go shooting at me in here, unless you want to endanger everyone else with the ricocheting bullets, Sergeant. You won't hurt me, but you might end up hurting someone else. I wasn't trying to be brash, just explaining how I took care of the zombies." Job was starting to wish he'd worked a little faster, been a little less thorough, or otherwise been able to anonymously leave Denver before this man had arrived. "Yes, they tried to bite me, but no, they couldn't break my flesh. As far as I am aware, I'm the only one who possesses sufficient strength of will to cause me to bleed. Knives, bullets, claws, teeth... Especially the weak bites of months-dead zombies cannot hurt me, cannot harm me, cannot infect me. Is that clear?"

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Forget What You Can’t Remember The crowd indicated by a general murmur that he had been perfectly clear. Only the Sergeant still seemed to want to press Job for more answers about his limitations and abilities. Toward the back of the crowd, Skythians were already filtering away and upstairs to find terminals, windows, even just silence while they waited to be returned to the city above. Acceptance of the zombie-free state of Denver was trickling into their consciousness bit by bit, and except for those close enough to see and hear the oddity that this strange heroic figure who called himself Fantastician represented, most had found they received mere disappointment from the news. "What about strength? I can tell by the strength of your grip that you're no weakling, but are you strong?" The Sergeant grabbed a double-barreled rifle from one of the people still standing around and proffered it to Job. "Could you bend the barrel of this gun with your bare hands?" Job took the rifle and twisted it into a loop almost before the Sergeant had finished asking him to do it. "Yes, yes, feats of strength I can do. If you want, I can go outside and carry this dangling building back up to the city faster than it's going, now. If it wouldn't kill everyone inside, I could move it faster than the speed of sound. I've never tried to break a cable woven from nanotubes, though for some reason I seem to know everything there is to know about the technology, the physics, the math behind why it's so strong..." Job almost got derailed for a moment by his own inability to remember where he'd learned all the wide world of things he seemed to know so well, but caught himself. "I've never tried to break such a thing, but I'm confident that it would give very little resistance if I tried. If you'd like, I can tear this structure free from the city with my bare hands, fly it at several times the speed of sound into the sky, and put you into orbit." Job paused, waiting to see if the Sergeant's curiosity would prompt him to take Job up on his offer, or if he was beginning to get the point of it. "Or, you can speak with

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Teel McClanahan III me civilly about what's gone on down in Denver and we can go from there. If that's not possible, I've got to get back to the stadium and inter about a million bodies' worth of bones and ash." "No, no, don't run, err... Don't fly off, just yet, Fantastician. I didn't mean to be rude, you've just taken me by surprise. Go ahead and finish explaining about Denver and maybe I can pick your brain about your abilities later on, alright?" The Sergeant was already getting ideas in his head about adding the Fantastician to the tournament schedule and all the seats that would be filled by people coming to see such a person in competition. As Job began speaking again, the Sergeant was already trying to come up with a better name for him - something more dramatic, something that would put butts in seats, and most importantly, something that rolled a lot easier off the tongue. "As I was saying, I took care of all the zombies in Denver systematically, going through every room of every building and up and down every street, and then out into the surrounding countryside. I'm not offering a guarantee that you won't find one or two wandering around somewhere - I didn't scan out into the mountains and the open countryside as far as zombies could have shambled since the time the original outbreak occurred - but the city proper is clear. I also cleaned up and burned up all the remains of the deceased citizens of Denver. The last of them is nearly burned down to ash below us now. Everything has been cleaned and repaired to the best of my ability with the tools available to me. There was enough solar available that I got gas and water maintained and online, though the city isn't ready for a million people to be drawing power again at this point. Houses, offices, stores, everything is as close to original condition as I could get it, so you won't find rotting remains or evidence of the horrors that must have gone on down there during the outbreak itself - paint, carpet, windows, and some wooden floors have been replaced and everything else cleaned. Everything is

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Forget What You Can’t Remember organized and documented in the appropriate government offices, along with logs of all the materials I used and where I got them from, in case someone cares about such things at this point. Without going into specifics, that's about it, I think. Does anyone have any questions?" There had been a few sounds from the crowd, a few whispered murmurs as he'd given his dry report, and now a few of them spoke up. "You mean we can go back home?" "I don't believe it." "I need to see this." "Why are we going back up? We should be going down!" "I've gotta call my wife! We're going home!" There were several Denver survivors in the group, quickly gathering together to try to get more information out of Job. Whether to try to exact some sort of revenge, to get the full training for how to handle a horror they'd already had to face unprepared, or just to have the chance to do their part to try to restore their home town to a survivable state, the Sergeant's zombie survival training course had been quite popular with the former residents of Denver. Job found this line of questioning much more comfortable than the Sergeant's had been. Answering about the state of a particular home, a particular fondly-remembered keepsake, or their abandoned store full of merchandise wasn't going to bring up an unanswerable moral quandary and although to a certain degree it reminded him that he didn't know where his own home might have been, Job got a sense of satisfaction to be able to offer a few words of reassurance to these people. As he listed off the small details of his restoration to the dozens of different homes, rooms, and offices, Job began to realize that one of his superior abilities was his memory. Every little detail of these other people's lives came to him easily, along with the gruesome scenes many of them had been when he'd arrived. He kept the worst of it to himself, only telling of the restorations, the things that had sur-

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Teel McClanahan III vived intact, and to the business owners whose inventories he'd made use of or disposed of, Job gave as much detail as they wanted about precisely what he'd done. He kept also to himself his inability to recall such details of his own past, his own home - luckily, none of them bothered to ask him about himself. Their questions kept on coming until the commerce center reached Skythia, and then the crowd dispersed quite rapidly as everyone seemed to have someone to tell about what Job had reported to them. Job found himself alone with the Sergeant again. "So." "Yes?" "Can we speak, now?" "I suppose we're going to, whether I want to, or not." "I'm sure I couldn't force you to do anything you didn't want to. I've built a life, my whole life, around my strength and my leadership, but I doubt that either is a match for you. You seem to be a real-life superhero, complete with a strange superhero name. Fantastician. Where did you get a name like that?" "I wish I knew. It's terrible, isn't it?" "Finally, something we can agree on!" The Sergeant had been worried that Job would be proud of or otherwise attached to his ridiculous name, but really didn't have the tact to approach the question gracefully. "I think you need a new name. Have you given the idea any thought?" Job was just glad the Sergeant hadn't asked him why he didn't know where his name had come from. "Well, for starters, my real name is Job. Just so you have something less awkward to call me for now." "That's a lot easier that Fantastician, but I can see why you wouldn't want to try to use that to represent all the power you happen to embody." The Sergeant reached out to shake Job's hand again, this time less trying to show his strength and more trying to create a bond. "Pleased to meet you, Job."

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Forget What You Can’t Remember "Likewise." Job thought about asking, but decided that if the Sergeant didn't want to offer any name other than 'Sergeant', that must be how he wanted to be addressed. "I've certainly thought about names, but I haven't been able to come up with anything I like better than Fantastician. You'd think it couldn't get any worse than that, but believe me. It can." "Oh, I believe you. I've been talking to a few luchadores, recently, and some of them have the absolute worst taste in names." "Luchadores?" "Mexican wrestlers, basically. They tend to wear masks and maintain elaborate public personas, but they know their sport." "Wrestling." "I'd like to talk to you about that, as well, but I really think we need to work on your name." The Sergeant thought that taking Job to the training facility where his fighters practiced and sparred would be the best way to break the idea of his involvement to him, so began walking to the door. "Walk with me, come see the city, and we'll figure something out." Job followed him out, and to a terminal to take a twoperson transport to the Sergeant's facility. "Now, Job, what is it about the name Fantastician that you like?" "Well, at least it represents me, to a certain degree. I mean, half my powers seem to be mental. Not like, psychic powers, but math, physics, accounting, engineering, memory and problem solving. I think Fantastician is like a cross between 'fantastic' and 'mathematician' - nothing else I thought of to explain it really made sense." "You're a mathematician, too? How does that go with flying and the strength and invulnerability, exactly?" "Usually, it doesn't. Typically I'm either saving the day with my superior physical abilities of I'm doing it with my superior mental abilities. Not many bank heists require advanced mathematical theory, or even accounting - just cap-

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Teel McClanahan III ture the thieves without harming the bank or the citizens and hand everything over to local law enforcement. Not many mathematical theorems require the use of brute strength or supersonic flight. But I feel strongly that my name should try to encompass both sets of abilities." "I think you may be wrong about that, Job. I think what would work best is if your name were easily remembered, impressive on its own, and called to mind all the obvious, visible, physical power you represent. Establish that name, associate it with the idea of power, and then when you also solve math and science problems, that just adds to your mystery and strength. It adds power to an already powerful name. Remember, for most people, for the masses who aren't going to understand why a particular mathematical formula is so important, you're going to be seen and remembered as a beacon of strength and might." The Sergeant was trying to position Job for the greater good of the physical spectacle he was hoping to create by putting him up against the best fighters Skythia could round up from a full cycle around the world. Considering or mentioning the fact that a majority of Skythians were scientists and mathematicians was not something he wanted to do. "I can see where you're coming from, but... I'm still not sure. I mean, if you've got a name in mind that wows me..." "Well, what else can you do? Any other powers of abilities I should know about and consider? Any political or religious alignments to take into account?" "Let's see. Strength. Nigh invulnerability. Flight and, while in flight, super speed. I might be able to move quickly on the ground, too, but being above obstacles always seemed easier, so I haven't really tried. Sight... uhh... I can see everything." "What do you mean, everything? Everything in the world, in the universe?"

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Forget What You Can’t Remember "No, it's more like..." Job searched for the words to explain it without getting too technical, and wasn't entirely successful. "I can see all the detail of being inches away from something no matter how far away it is, and I can see not just the so-called visible spectrum of light, but the entire spectrum of electromagnetic radiation along with every other form of radiation and every form of magical projection and emanation." "I see." "Well actually, I see. Compared with my vision, you're practically blind. But let's see... Super sight. All the mental stuff I mentioned... Oh, and I apparently don't need to eat or sleep or breathe. I can, I just don't seem to need to. Well, obviously, I'm breathing now to be able to talk, but one time I had to swim down to an underwater cave and fight a onearmed monster and its mother and I must have been half an hour down there without a single gasp of air." "And you don't sleep, either? Don't you ever get tired?" "Nope. It takes a certain amount of exertion to speed up or to lift a massive weight, but I think that's more a sensation of the scale of the forces at work rather than of using up any energy or working toward weariness." Job considered all he'd done that he could remember, trying to recall any other clearly superior abilities, but kept ending up in that mental tide pool of not knowing who he was or where he came from. "As far as politics and religion go, I'm not aware of having any particular alignment. I've been spending a lot of time lately considering the nature of morality and trying to determine an absolute basis for making ethical choices, but it hasn't been particularly easy. Everyone seems to have their own sense of right and wrong, every city and every nation its own set of laws, and just trying to do good has grown increasingly difficult for me. Increasingly difficult. Like destroying hundreds of thousands of zombies and cleaning up close to a million corpses and several times as many build-

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Teel McClanahan III ings; I thought it was the right thing to do, but you obviously thought differently." "Hmm... So you're deeply concerned with morality and in doing what is right and just and good..." The Sergeant avoided the subject of his own frustration at Job's thoroughness interfering with his own plans. "I'm sure we can work that into your public identity. It'll be very popular with just about everyone that you're fighting for justice. That's a very good angle." The transport arrived and the two men got out and began walking toward the entrance to the Sergeant's training facility. "Do you always wear the mask? It makes it look like you've got something to hide." "I'm not hiding anything. Well, not that I know of. I've had this same costume as long as I can remember. I can show you later, but the way it's colored seems to be to create a particular look while I'm in flight. Without the cowl, it wouldn't work quite as well, I think. I can't really see myself fly by myself at high speed to be sure, but I've got some pretty good visualization skills." "I wasn't trying to say you needed to lose the mask. I'd never suggest such a thing to the luchadores I'm working with. I just thought that if you were hiding something, it might help with the naming." "Oh." "Well, we're here," the Sergeant said as he led Job into the main training area, where a dozen or so people were scattered around, training, sparring, lifting weights and otherwise preparing for the first public exhibition event, coming up in a few days. "I'd like to show you what I've been doing here, and see if maybe you'd like to join us. I think a man of your talents would prove to be an interesting addition to our group. With the right name, of course."

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Chapter 25

"W

hat do you mean, I can't blow up Denver?"

"Apparently it isn't infested with zombies any longer." Colm tried to calm Brady down by explaining that the situation had already been taken care of. "In fact, we're organizing a team to verify it, but we've been told the entire city has been refurbished and is ready for resettlement." Brady held up a handheld displaying the relevant permits and releases and tried to defend his position. "I've got permission, though. It already went to a vote, and the vote passed. My weapon has been approved for testing, and the vacant city of Denver has been approved as the test area." "That vote was based on out of date information. Citizens approved the destruction of Denver based on the idea that it was filled with the walking dead. If you look at the docket for today," and the mayor brought up the relevant proposals on the big wall display behind him, "you'll see that at least four different groups have made proposals for immediate use of the property. That's just Skythians. The news hit the Æthernetwork half an hour ago, and three neighboring territories have already contacted us and asked to be included in any decisions about what's to be done with what has just gone from a dangerous threat to the area's safety to

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Forget What You Can’t Remember a valuable unclaimed treasure of property and resources by our learning about Fantastician's actions." "Are you saying my rights are being taken away, after I went through all the right channels to earn them? I thought Skythians were just." "Our government is built on mutability, flexibility, and rapid adaptability. It's right there in your permits that you can't test your weapon for three days after we arrive, or until the Sergeant declares that his team is both safely returned and finished with their exercises, whichever comes first." "But he has returned! There were no zombies!" "Technically, that isn't correct. Technically, he hasn't even set foot on the ground, yet." Colm directed Brady's attention toward another part of the big display, "as you can see here, the Sergeant is putting together a much larger team to sweep the entire city and verify Fantastician's reports. The proposal to request the city's resources to scan outlying areas from above goes to a vote in a few minutes, along with a separate request to extend our time in Denver until this matter is resolved." "What?" Brady tapped furiously away at his handheld, looking up the relevant proposal and reading through the current version of the text. "If this passes, it pushes my weapons test back indefinitely! He can't do this!" "Write a statement against it, voice your opinion. Everyone will see it, it'll be attached to the proposal. In case you forgot, that's how we do things around here. Dissenting voices get their say. Just like your friend's dissenting statements against your weapon's production and proposed use." "Don't remind me," Brady grumbled. "But your proposal passed. The science behind your weapon is sound, it poses no threat beyond the targeted area, and your proposed test site, at the time, seemed to be optimal. Questions of your mental stability and possible future intentions for your weapon designs were not deemed to be relevant by the citizens of Skythia, and you were approved."

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Teel McClanahan III "And I'm about to be unapproved." "You still have time to get an attachment written up before this goes to a vote. No one in Skythia likes to work hard for months on a project only to see it get shut down at the last minute by bureaucracy or other citizens' last-minute counterproposals, so there's a chance you'll get a lot of sympathy from long-time citizens." "How eloquent an argument do you think I'll be able to come up with in the next..." Brady checked the countdown attached to the proposal on his handheld, "three and a half minutes?" "You've been here for how long, and you still don't know this stuff?" Colm reached across his desk and showed Brady what to do, "Look, you're automatically associated with the proposal because it modifies the terms of your permit, so you see here," he tapped Brady's screen, "you can indicate that you're working on an attachment or counterproposal and delay the presentation of a citywide vote by any one of these pre-specified times. How long do you think you'll need to state your case?" "I don't know, maybe half an hour or more if I want it to be well thought out and in clear, convincing language." Brady sounded unsure. "Fine, no problem, well within the maximums for an acting citizen such as yourself. Just tap there to indicate that you're asking for up to an hour to prepare something," Brady did so, "and you'll see that the time until the vote got bumped back an hour. After you submit something, the legislators will consider whether anything else needs re-factoring, but now you have more time." "Time to defend the rights I already won." "Sure, but even if the vote doesn't go your way, the record of this happening will be there. That you made a proposal that went to a vote and passed, that you worked for nearly half a year on a project only to have your right to prove it out taken away at the last moment, all of it will be

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Forget What You Can’t Remember there the next time you propose to test your weapon." Colm didn't personally care for the idea of developing doomsday weapons that could wipe out entire cities and regions in an instant, but vigorously defended his citizens' rights to develop whatever their passions drove them to. As long as Brady wasn't trying to harm Skythia or its citizens, or to otherwise impede the rights of other Skythians, his actions were legal. "That record alone will go a long way toward getting something else approved. Just as Skythians don't like to see their own individual projects get shut down, they don't like to have to go back on their word. Yes, with a good reason they'll change the law, change their minds, but when doing so disenfranchises even one Skythian, the community tends to want to do something to make it right. If you don't get to blow up Denver, I'm sure you'll be able to test your weapon someplace else, soon enough." "Where else am I going to find an abandoned city that archaeologists and plunderers and squatters aren't interested in preserving? Sure, I could test the weapon in the middle of nowhere, but how will I know how it effects structures, vegetation, and infrastructure like roads and sewers? Without a realistic test, the weapon is like Schrödinger's cat." "I don't think that's an accurate analogy. Your weapon won't be in a simultaneous and undifferentiated state of both destroying a city and not destroying a city." "No, no, but the idea of whether or not it works will be like the idea of whether of not the cat is alive; it cannot be known until the result has been observed. Not the superposition of a destroyed city and an untouched one, but the superposition of an actually destructive weapon and a useless, ineffective one." "I see. Were you planning, then, on using or selling the weapon? What is the point, here?" "Does it matter whether I say I'm going to put the weapon on the open market, or whether I say I just want

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Teel McClanahan III to have a complete data set on the device I've developed? Legally?" "Not to Skythia, except that of course if the weapon is against the law of the location you sell it, we can't let you sell it there, and any income from IP developed or produced in Skythia goes directly to Skythia itself, rather than any individual account." "I know how the commerce center works, Colm. And I was never planning on selling the devices, that isn't the point. I just want to be able to develop the technologies, build the devices, and test them in accurate situations, analogous to their intention." "Devices? How many are you planning, exactly?" "I've already got two follow-ons ready for fabrication, and another one on the drawing board." "And how do you expect to test those weapons, after you've blown up Denver? Surely you must have something in mind for those." "Denver was a serendipity of events, and a unique opportunity with unique timing." "So you don't have a plan?" "Everything has been coming together so well, no. I hadn't worked it out that far in advance. That's part of why I'm so upset about Denver; it feels like it's signaling the beginning of the end of the serendipity. I always expected that your city's idealized promise was too good to be true, and I'm still paranoid that everything will come crashing down to defeat my plans." "Well, I'm not going to promise that all your wildest dreams will come true, but I can tell you that Skythia itself and most of what takes place here represents dream fulfillment on a massive scale. The community really comes together to vet and then bring citizens' plans to fruition. No one here is trying to work against you, and if you can show they are, you can get them reprimanded or even recalled. We're all trying to work together for the greater good, ev-

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Forget What You Can’t Remember eryone helping everyone else to conceive the greatest ideas, to do the best work, and to be the best we can be, both as individuals and as a community. I would be surprised if you were to lose this opportunity and not see several citizens volunteer to help you find a new one. In fact, if that happens let me know, and I'll volunteer myself." "I can't help but take that as empty promises and political rhetoric, but that might be coming from past experience, rather than what Skythians seem to think is normal. Then again, no normal government or citizenry would have allowed me to design and build doomsday devices at all, let alone given me all the support and assistance I've received from the community. It's going to take some getting used to, this place. Maybe I was wrong when at first I thought the four year civil service prerequisite for full citizenship was excessive. At this rate, it'll be at least another couple of years before I get the hang of Skythia." "Which, yes, is exactly why we do things the way we do. Now, I want you to go write your arguments out and get them attached before time runs out and that proposal goes to a vote. It's your civic duty to participate, and voicing concerns is an important part of that participation. We like to see people accomplish things, but it's equally important that decisions are made with as much information and rational discourse as is possible and reasonable. Will you do your part, Brady?" "Of course. And I'll try to tone down my pessimism. I'll try to keep my hopes up that things will continue to work out for me." "Good. And thank you for coming to see me about this."

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Chapter 26

"I

'm not letting you use that thing on me, Paul. I've been telling you since you came up with the idea, and I haven't changed my mind." "But that's just the thing. Using it could change your mind! Once you know what you used to know, maybe you'll be glad you know it!" "How many times do I have to tell you that I'm happy with how my life is now, with who and what I know now, and with the life I'm living here in Skythia? How many times do I have to explain that it doesn't really matter where I came from or how I got here, as long as now and the future are satisfying, fulfilling, and make me happy? How many times are we going to have this same argument before you get it through that thick skull of yours that I don't want you mucking around in mine? Do you not like me the way I am? You tell me you love me, but then sometimes you go on and on about your doomsday this and your doomsday that and how you want to make me into the person I used to be - a person you never met, Paul. A person who doesn't know you and who -from what I have been able to recall- wouldn't love you." "You know that isn't what I want, Mary. I do love you, the way you are. I do want you to go on loving me. I just..."

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Forget What You Can’t Remember Paul had never quite figured out how to put this clearly to her; they always ended up arguing about it again. And again. And again. He'd tried to just stop talking about it. For a long time while he was working on it there wasn't anything new to say, but now it was ready. Paul had a working prototype. "I love you enough to not want to see you going through life with part of who you are missing. It's like you'd had a part of your body amputated, and I'm trying to reattach it." "But this isn't like a crippling or disabling injury, Paul. This is something which has left me fully alive, and fully capable of living a full and emotionally available life, to move forward and achieve goals I never even dreamed of before it happened. If anything, this makes me a better person." "You say that with such confidence, Mary, but you have no way of knowing what your dreams were, before. Not without letting me bring them back to you, with my machine. I could do just that much, if you wanted to try it out. It can be very specific, very narrow in what it effects. Actually, that's something I hope to improve in later attempts. It's almost too narrow, right now." "What do you mean?" "I mean, it doesn't bring back enough yet. I've done a few tests, some on myself, but I found some other volunteers, as well. The machine can access the source of the energy that brought on all the changes, but it can't reverse it entirely, not yet. So I restored one woman's memory of her first kiss, but that didn't bring any memories of the date it happened on back, or the setting, or her parents, and it certainly didn't restore the boy she kissed back into existence. I restored one man's memory of the name of his home town, but even knowing its name and the location it apparently used to occupy, neither of us has been able to verify that Pittsburgh ever existed. Trying to put it on a map and go looking to see if there's any trace of it has been even harder - based on the memories I was able to restore to his mind,

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Teel McClanahan III that area's entire geography has been irrevocably altered, if not removed completely." "And how has this limited restoration of memories affected these people? Not for the best, I suspect. Remembering your first kiss, but not where you grew up or where even the kiss took place or with whom? That has to be more frustrating than not being able to remember your first kiss at all." "Yes, at first it was, but I've been working on the machine, and the software is now integrated with several advanced AI who volunteered copies. When I first used the machine, it took half an hour to locate and restore a single, narrow memory. Every time we use it, though, we get better at using it. And every time we use it on the same subject, it gets easier and easier to restore broader and broader memories. The basic functionality is based on complex mathematical theories we haven't entirely solved yet, but from each use we get more data to fit the equations to. Eventually, I'm sure we'll be able to restore someone's full history in one go. Perhaps in a single instant." "But you're not there yet." "No. It's a little cumbersome and fairly inexact, right now." "And yet you're asking me to put my head into that thing and do something even you admit you don't fully understand." "Well..." Mary didn't wait for Paul to come up with another excuse. "Well, nothing. I'm not happy you've been experimenting with your own mind, Paul. I'm not happy that you've been doing all this in secret. I'm really not happy to see that after the better part of a year you still aren't able to let go of the past and move on. I wish you'd just stop it, Paul. Stop trying to restore people's memories of people who -for all intents and purposes- never existed. Stop trying to restore people's memories of places they can never go

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Forget What You Can’t Remember back to and lives they can never regain. You're doing harm, not good. This past, this lost history, lost geography, these lost people - they're no different from fictional stories, now. All you're doing is sticking fiction into people's heads and convincing them that it used to be real." "That's what I was trying to get to. I think that once we understand the rest of the phenomenon, once we really get a grasp of the mathematics and physics behind it, we may be able to restore those lost people. We may be able to visit those lost places. We may be able to regain everything about our lives that was taken away from us without our permission in the event that day. I've shown my work to some of the top theoretical and practical mathematicians and physicists in Skythia, and they agree that there's more to it, and that whatever happened to us doesn't need to be a permanent change. So I'm asking for your help, for you to volunteer, because we need more data to get it right. You can help us to set the world right." "I still don't see what you think is so wrong with the world, today. What is it about this... Pittsburgh?" Paul nodded. "What is it about Pittsburgh that makes you want to go there? Other than the idea that you can't do it, why go? Is it just the idea of something that can't be done? Are you somehow trying to prove that you're mightier than reality itself? Is this a male machismo thing?" "No! This is about doing what is right! It isn't right that people have been robbed of something so precious as their own personal histories. It isn't right that no one was given the choice whether to live or to be erased from existence. I'm not trying to prove something, I'm trying to do what's right." "I just don't agree. I can't agree. In order for you to be right, my whole life, my plans, even my happiness has to be wrong. I can't accept that, Paul. I can't accept that just because you don't understand something, just because you can't be happy with the way things are, you're going to drag

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Teel McClanahan III the rest of the world down with you into it. What if we don't want to remember Pittsburgh? What if I like remembering the first time I kissed you as my first kiss? How can you stand there and tell me it isn't right for me to feel this way?" "I'm not trying to say that your feelings aren't real, but you know that our first kiss wasn't the first time you'd kissed someone. You know it. You may not remember who, or when, or what it was like, but that wasn't your first kiss, not really." "Who's to say what's real? Reality is based on perception. And based on my perception, based on my memory as it stands right now and history as it's currently recorded, you're the only person I've ever kissed. And you know what, Paul? I like it that way! I think I love you more because of it. Because as far as my mind is concerned, and even though I have a vague emotional recollection that I've been unhappy with other people in the past, you're the only person I love. The only one I've ever loved. I don't know about you, but that's pretty special to me. Pretty important. That's not something I want to lose. Not for something as impersonal as science, or some misguided sense of right and wrong. What if you stick me in that machine of yours and it takes that away from me? What if I loved someone else before, or more than one person, or lots of people, and in knowing that my love for you pales in comparison? Or just seems smaller in the context of it all? I don't know, and I don't want to take that chance. Why do you think I keep fighting for us, even while you're fighting against us with this obsession of yours? I love you. I love you, and I don't want to lose you." "I..." Paul's mind was swimming. "You..." Mary had never put her arguments against what he was doing this way before. She had always been against it, but Paul had never been able to see why. "Uhh..." Paul was beginning to understand her, he certainly empathized and identified emotionally with what she was trying to say, but he had never been

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Forget What You Can’t Remember much good at talking about his feelings. Esoteric concepts like right and wrong and complex mathematical structures and even doomsday prophecies had always come easier to him than the expressions of his own heart. "We... Uhh..." It was easier to just try to ignore his emotions, even strong ones, often just letting them steer his actions automatically, than to try to understand them, to consider them in any meaningful way, or worse than either of those: To discuss them with others. In the period immediately after doomsday, Paul's emotions had risen very close to the surface of his being. The development of the machine had been the perfect thing to bury himself in, and his heart along with him. "Never mind, Paul." Mary was grabbing her things, shoving her handheld rudely into her purse and standing to leave. "Just... Call me when you have something new to say. I don't want to hear about this machine of yours any more. I don't want to lose you, but it's more important to me that I don't lose myself, right now, and you along with the me I've been able to become." She was walking out his door. "Don't call me until you're done trying to fix what isn't broken, Paul. I love you." The door closed automatically behind her. Paul sat in silence. He stared at the door, at the spot she'd been standing when she'd finally disappeared from his sight. He continued struggling with his emotions, to try to get some sort of handle on them, to try to come up with some kind of response. Some kind of answer that took his emotions, Mary's emotions, and the rest of the world somehow into the same context. Paul sat there, thinking, unsure of what to do or say or think, until someone called him, out of the blue. His handheld and his wall display lit up and chimed out to alert him of a communication request, and Paul answered the call automatically, without thinking. He did not recognize the masked face that greeted him when the channel opened. "Hello. I uhh... I heard you've built a machine that can restore missing memories?"

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Chapter 27

"S

o this is the machine." Job marveled at its size and complexity, casually floating above and around it and observing it across all electromagnetic and radiographic spectra with a curious eye. "Well, this is the proof of concept prototype we've thrown together based on our initial mathematical models. You can probably see where we've had to make late additions to the hardware, for focusing or slowing down energies according to the data from the first few series of test runs." Job cautiously reached into the tangle of wires, pipes, gears, optical fiber, and assorted tiny robots working its constant maintenance and adjusted the confinement angle of a particular particle emitter. "I can see that you've had your hands full." On a monitor around the corner, a reading edged from red to green as Job's adjustment corrected for an error Paul's team hadn't been able to track down. "It looks like a pretty ambitious setup." "Well, I guess it's been a pretty ambitious goal. Manipulating the makeup of reality directly isn't exactly child's play." "Well, not from within the confines of reality itself, no, but that goes for just about any system of constraints." Job set down and walked alongside Paul again, into his office.

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Forget What You Can’t Remember "So may I take a look at the underlying math? I understand you've mostly been coming at the problem from the perspective of someone trying to describe observed reality with broad mathematical brush strokes and then to paint with a brush that looks like it could have painted the observed image. I'm sure a fresh set of eyes will do the trick, and I'd at least like to take a crack at it without seeing the masterpiece you're trying to copy, first." "You mean to say you'd like to look at the formula and process we came up with before seeing the data we based it on? No problem, though I'm not sure how much sense it will make." "Making sense of things is in my bones. I don't know what you've heard about me, but more and more over the last year or so I've found myself investing my thoughts in trying to make sense of the world and my own place in it. I think that perhaps next to the questions of the deeper meaning of life and the search for clear answers to broad moral and ethical questions, your math problem may seem like the child's play you referred to just a moment ago. Everything, it seems, looks different depending on your perspective." "Have you come up with any answers, or just more of the same questions philosophers have been pushing back and forth for millennia?" Paul pulled up his records on his handheld while they spoke, putting together an interactive, isolated copy of the formulae his team had developed and preparing it to go up on the wall display for Job. "To a certain degree, all I've been able to nail down is that these questions' answers are just as I stated - different depending on your perspective. For me, this poses a unique sort of difficulty, since I am unable to remember what my perspective is. Where I come from, where my morals come from, what they're based on, what history and philosophy has formed me, and what direction ought I to be growing in based on those answers, are the sorts of things I hope your machine will be able to assist me with."

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Teel McClanahan III "Do you remember anything prior to February 29th of this year?" Job had been given that date during their earlier conversation, and had taken some time to think back about it. "Nothing. Some of my memories from March aren't entirely clear, not well-mapped to time and space in my mind, but the first things I can clearly remember taking place in a specific place or at a specific date were in mid- to late March. There are a few things that must have been before that, but..." Job's brow furrowed, in both hard thinking and frustration at that thinking's continued failure to produce results. "But I can't be sure how long before that they might have been." "Well, from what you've described, it certainly sounds like the same phenomenon as what we've been finding here, especially among Denver survivors. If it's due to the same cause, the machine should be able to help, some. As I said earlier, we've already had some success with recovering information about one volunteer's home town. That sort of deeply ingrained, well known or, at least, previously well known sort of information seems to be the easiest to recover." "I certainly have more faith in your machine and your process knowing that another key feature is that people don't realize they've lost memories until it's pointed out to them. That's exactly how it was, with me." Job recalled how his awareness of what was missing from his mind had come in little bits and pieces over time, usually through innocuous conversation on unrelated subjects. How trying to think of what he couldn't think of made it all the harder to recall. "It's been fairly difficult to suss out exactly what the nature of the problem was. Especially with these other, more farreaching ethical and moral dilemmas cropping up all over, occupying my mind and time." "Like the zombies in Denver?" "Nah, zombies was an easy one, and a relief. There isn't much call for deep thought about whether a hungry, conta-

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Forget What You Can’t Remember gious, walking corpse ought to be destroyed or preserved. There are no differences due to jurisdiction, religious persuasion, ethnographic history, or pre-existing and complex inter-group agreements about conflict resolution. Zombies just need to be destroyed, and the destruction they wreaked cleaned up. Until Skythia showed up it was just me and the dead, so I didn't even need to consult with anyone about how they wanted to manage the cleanup - I just made decisions and went with them. The whole thing, once you got past the smell, was fairly meditative." "Oh, I remember the smell. I went down when we first reached Denver and picked up survivors. How... Ugh, who could forget that smell?" "Well, believe me when I say that the smell of the place after a few days' worth of rotting was nothing compared with what was waiting for me inside the top floors of the skyscrapers. Those windows do not open. Airing those buildings out... I almost started to think I'd have to tear out and replace the walls to get rid of the smell." "Why did you go to all that trouble? Why renovate an entire abandoned city?" "It comes down to the question of morals and ethics and trying to know not just right from wrong, but what ought someone with my strengths and skills be doing in any given situation," Job confessed. "It was simply easier to go on, alone, doing something that was at least more right than it was wrong, than it would have been to keep facing the situations I'd been running into." "What sorts of situations?" "Well, for example, not long before I first reached Denver I stumbled upon a battlefield with a dozen different factions, all fighting for different reasons and under half a dozen or more colors. After interviewing dozens of fighters from every group, it became clear that there was no clear good side and no clear evil side, and that the reasons everyone had for fighting were both ambiguous enough to convince the

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Teel McClanahan III uninformed and rational enough to justify fighting for every culture represented on the field, based on their histories and values and treaties and on and on and on. Which side of this multi-faceted battle ought I to have fought on? Who was right, who had the right to survive the day, and who had the justification to kill? Those questions would have been difficult enough on a battlefield with two opponents possessing clearly diametric views and reasons for being there, but this battle was orders of magnitude more difficult to decipher." "What did you end up doing? Did you just give up and leave?" "That's something we can discuss another time, if you're still interested. Personally, I'm still not sure whether what I did was for the best, or even just the best I could have accomplished. But to explain my actions that day to you I'd want to give you the whole background of the conflict, and we don't really have time for both this afternoon." "Both?" "Both the explanation of the conflict and any sort of work on your math problem before I have to get to the arena." "What's going on at the arena?" "You haven't heard? It certainly felt like they'd told everyone in the city about it." "We've been pretty engrossed in getting this thing working. I'd only taken a break to try to convince my girlfriend to try the machine when you called. I guess I missed the announcement. Is there some sort of presentation taking place at the arena about what happened in Denver?" "Oh, no, nothing of the sort. The Sergeant, who was supposed to have been taking his trainees down to work with real zombies when Skythia arrived in Denver a few days ago, has overcome his disappointment at my cleanup and recruited me to participate in his mixed martial arts fight night. Which, because he got approval to go down with a larger team to double-check my work and certify the city

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Forget What You Can’t Remember zombie-free, he bumped up from next week to tonight. So in about an hour I've got to be down at the arena getting ready for the competition." "Wait, you're competing in a mixed martial arts competition? How is that fair? Aren't you supposed to be indestructible or something?" "Something like that, plus I can move faster than anyone he's got, and I have super strength. It isn't a fair fight by far, even though -as far as I'm aware- I don't know a single martial art." "So why would any of the fighters agree to go up against you? Won't they just be setting themselves up to fail?" "Sure, but the idea is to get people interested, to fill the arena, and to entertain. So Sarge devised a sort of alternating schedule that puts two qualified fighters up against each other, then puts me up against the loser for three minutes. Then another two reasonably-matched fighters, then me versus both losers at once for three minutes. Then another fair fight, then me against three, and it keeps going like that all night. The fair fights are some sort of progressive singleelimination system, so that at the end of the night, the two winningest fighters will be going up against each other, and I'll be going up against everyone else on the roster at once. The last two fights should be interesting, because the fighters will be exhausted from so many fights, and then because I'll be outnumbered dozens to one against the most dangerous fighters Sarge could sign up in a six-month world tour of recruitment from everywhere Skythia stopped." "But you'll still win." "Sure, and then I'll symbolically give the real champion the prize belt. So while people who know a thing or two about fighting will be satisfied by the real fights, everyone else will be entertained watching me beat the losers up over and over again, and hopefully by the end of it everyone in attendance will have some idea about why I'd be crowning the winner king of the ring."

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Teel McClanahan III "You think Skythians have a taste for that sort of thing? I'd have thought they wouldn't be interested in all that violence, especially as raw entertainment." "Hey, I only just got here, so I can't tell you what the average Skythian is like, but I can tell you that when Sarge re-scheduled the fight night and put me on the bill, the thing sold out in no time. Apparently people have been negotiating and deal-making all over town, trying to get seats. Me, I doubt I'll break a sweat the whole night, but it might be fun and it sure beats solving ethics." "Is a super-powered man fighting regular people really ethical?" "They all know what they're getting into, and everyone has given clear, informed consent. I've even worked with most of the fighters already, to be sure that they knew what they were going up against and what they were really consenting to. Plus, no killing, anyone can drop out at any time, and really we're all on the same side. Heck, it's more ethically clear than eating vat-grown meat. These people are actually asking for it. Until a cow asks you to eat it, even just eating dinner is more morally ambiguous." "I guess so. Too bad it's so popular, I wouldn't mind seeing your non-mathematical powers at work, too." "Speaking of which, we really need to get started on your mathematical wrestling if we want to make any progress today." Paul had forgotten to put the information up onto the wall display after he'd finished putting it together, and swiped it gesturally to the nearest wall display before Job could even finish asking for it again. "Thanks, and you can attend, if you want to. I'm sure I could get you a couple of seats if you don't mind being right up front where the action is." "I'll see what Mary's plans are while you work on that," said Paul, automatically thinking of her. Forgetting the way she'd walked out on him only hours before. Paul stared at nothing, way off into the distance, realizing he still talked and

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Forget What You Can’t Remember thought about her as though everything were fine and they were still together. Realizing that this lapse of his memory was simple denial, not some sinister side effect of the rewriting of reality. Paul was so far away inside his own mind that he could hardly hear Job explaining the adjustments he was making and solutions he was finding in moments which had been eluding the whole team for months.

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"D

o you suppose they'd have fared any better if they'd spent the last few months practicing fighting together rather than practicing for one on one competitions?" In the cage, Job was handling the onslaught of apparently disorganized opponents as though they were children playing, or like harmless domesticated animals merely playing at hunting. The audience cheered with every blow. "I'm not sure any matter of teamwork would be able to overcome the level of strength and invulnerability he's displaying in there. Their strikes have no effect on him. Their teeth and claws and hooves don't even tear his costume. Except when he decides to roll with their punches, clearly allowing their efforts to replace his own in moving him to another part of the cage, not even the strongest among them seems to be able to have any effect on him. What could they do better organized, when their single actions are so ineffectual?" "I don't know, but maybe they could have figured something out with enough training, thought, and practice together." "Well, the crowd seems well pleased by this version of events. The spectacle of the losers being thrown to the proverbial lions, as it were."

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Forget What You Can’t Remember "I suppose that might have something to do with the nature of the outcomes as well; everyone he's come up against is someone who just got beat up by a better fighter. They're tired, they're sore, and they're probably fairly demoralized. Think about it. If you'd just lost big in a proper, fair fight against a skilled opponent would you want to have to go up against an unbeatable opponent, just moments later?" "They all agreed to it, and I'm sure there's a good portion of the crowd who's only here to--" A loud noise of tortured, twisting metal giving in and letting out, accompanied by something like the sound of crushing bones and escaping fluids and first a hush and then a roar from the crowd as they took in the unexpected visual before them. Job had apparently defended himself a little too vigorously. The cage had not been designed to withstand Job's apparently limitless strength. One wall of it was distended out, far, like a boil swelling up from the surface of the skin or perhaps more like the way a broken bone twisted out of alignment under the skin would deform, stretch, discolor, and make disgusting the epidermis as it tried to tear through. Structural beams were rent asunder and the mesh of the cage was coming apart where it was pushed beyond the limits of its flexibility. It was not clear at first who or what, exactly, was trapped there, crushed and broken and bleeding over the first couple rows of the crowd. Only a tangle of flesh and metal, arms, legs, and blood-soaked and dangling organs and strips of fabric. Only by accounting for who was left standing in the cage could it be determined who had been embedded in its wall. "Wow." "I doubt they expected something like ...that... to happen when they agreed to this. That's..." He couldn't find the words to adequately capture his reaction to such a gruesome turn of events. "I just... So you suppose he has any powers that will help get them out of there safely, or any... I don't know, healing powers?"

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Teel McClanahan III "I only talked to him for a little while today, and mostly about math, but I doubt it." A swarm of medibots was descending on the broken fighters, coming at the problem from both sides of the cage and trying to get the other fighters to stop trying to help. "I'm sure they're better off in the hands of those medibots. Get a couple of mage surgeons involved once they're safely cut free," a limb fell, the audience gasped, it nearly landed on an unlucky patron, and a flying medibot swooped in from above and caught it mid-air, eliciting a cheer from the crowd, "and pieced back together... I'm sure they'll be good as new." "Well, at least he's trying to help." Job had been moving rapidly through the air, talking to the medics, trying to help in any way he could. "Shows he probably didn't actually intend to do... that." "No, he seemed like a really good guy. And brilliant. In less than an hour, he made more progress on my project than a team of Skythians in a month." Job seemed to freeze in place in the air. "I think that with his help, we'll reach our goals in no time. Maybe even be able to fix reality itself, rather than just people's memories of it, from the looks of his corrections so far." Job's head was turned to face away from the buzz of motion that the tragedy had become. He seemed to be staring at nothing, staring deep into the distance as though lost in thought. "What is he doing now?" "I don't--" Paul was pressed back into his seat, his ears ringing, and Job was gone. From the path of further destruction he'd left in his apparently super-sonic wake, Job had gone straight up. Up, out of the cage and out of the arena altogether, up into the sky, right through the ceiling and away.

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J

ob still had occasional difficulty with the accurate anticipation and application of his sometimes perplexingly potent puissance. After exercising such careful restraint during the first several rounds of the competition, Job finally found he had failed. Failed to protect the other fighters from himself. Failed to reign in his reflex reactions to being attacked. Failed, and now two -or was it three- people might be dead. Job tried to concentrate on the faint outlines of the broken bodies' bones, tried to asses the damage done, but could only tell that it was severe. Severe enough that what he was seeing was far from clear. Less gruesome, less terrible on a purely objective basis of comparison with some of the horrors Job had witnessed in cleaning up the zombies and their aftermath, seeing this struck him harder than anything in Denver had. These were people he knew, had trained with and gotten to like over the last few days, and this violence had been wrought by his own hand. Job extirpated himself from within range of the remaining combatants who had not yet realized what had happened, and flew over to see if there was any way he could help. He was faster than the medics and the medibots, but almost totally ignorant of the correct emergency procedures to take in such a situation. His strength could tear the twist-

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Forget What You Can’t Remember ed metal of the cage like so much tissue paper, but he didn't want to take any actions that would put them in more danger or cause more harm. Job waited until he could get clear instructions from the medics about how he could help, if at all. He floated, fast, back and forth between the bloody, battered bodies and anyone he could go to for advice. It wasn't long before he was fairly certain that he was more a hindrance than a help, and he floated backward, trying to stay out of the professionals' way. Then, coming into his perception from somewhere behind him, Job began to see an unusual sort of a glow. He spun in the air and faced the direction it was emanating from. Based on his knowledge of the layout of Skythia and the arena's location therein, Job was pretty sure that whatever was giving off this light was across town and deep within the city, perhaps even below street level. Job had never seen this particular non-color of radiation before, at least not that he could recall. What he could tell about it was that it was not interacting with much of the matter between its source and Job, but that when it did interact the effects were not good ones. Unlike X-rays, which cast silhouettes of denser materials, or other forms of radiation like most cosmic rays which mostly go unnoticed as they pass through the material world, this form of radiation interacted quite energetically when it interacted at all. Job could literally see the atoms of Skythia being torn apart by the energy of whatever it was he was seeing, as they gave off more energy and more radiation when they were blasted apart. At first the light was not very bright, and it seemed that most of it wasn't finding purchase as it made its way through space between Job and its source, but it was growing steadily brighter and brighter, and doing more and more damage as it did. Job did not exercise any restraint at all as he sprang into motion. Up and out of the arena about as fast as he could accelerate and without regard for obstacles in his way, Job flew. In a fraction of a second, he was in the sky. Before that

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Teel McClanahan III second was over, he was across town, looking straight down at the source of the radiation. Then down, down, down, and through whatever got in his way as he plunged into the heart of the city and toward the immediate threat to its survival. He could feel each particle of the radiation battering against him, more and more insistently as he drew nearer and nearer to its source, but did not worry about what damage it might be able to do to him. His drive to do whatever it took to save people had taken over, shoving thoughts of self preservation aside just as efficiently as it displaced concerns of ethics, relativistic morality, and the idea of engaging local law enforcement before taking action. When Job came face to face with the device emitting this strange form of radiation, it took him somewhat by surprise. It was a small device, sleek and polished and as highly engineered as it was beautifully designed. The radiation it was giving off grew and grew in intensity, as though it was still just warming up. The light this created in Job's perception, combined with the light coming back from all directions as atom after atom was broken open and its energy released by the energy being released by the device nearly made it impossible for Job to see the device in the more conventional electromagnetic spectrum. Job didn't want to waste any time merely staring into the brilliant light, contemplating action, but it took another full second of thoughtful analysis to be sure his instinctual response would not make things worse. He reached out, took the device between his hands, and crushed it with all his strength. As it gave out and was destroyed, the device gave off a final burst of light, heat, and energy that for a brief moment flooded every channel of Job's perception. Then it was dark, and the device was little more than fine powder between his palms. He blinked, then looked around. "Impressive," said Brady, stepping out from inside his specially-constructed safe room. "Four and a half seconds

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Forget What You Can’t Remember into warm-up. Did someone warn you? I thought you'd be tied up with that silly martial arts competition." "This seemed more important. What were you trying to do, here?" "You might have had a chance to see for yourself what I was doing, if you hadn't stormed in here and destroyed the device before it even started." Brady walked over to a set of shelves lined floor to ceiling with dozens of duplicates of the device Job had turned to dust. He pulled one down, unlocked the top of the casing, and tossed it over to Job. "Take a look for yourself. What do you think?" Job examined the inactive device, finding its details much easier to make out without the blinding glare of its strange radiations. "This could take out the entire city." Job marveled at the efficiencies of the device, about the size of a honeydew melon, but tried not to show how impressed he was. "That's the Mark II. I was supposed to be able to test the Mark I on Denver, but since there aren't any more zombies to wipe out, they redacted my license." "So you decided to test this one out on Skythia, instead? I don't suppose you have a license for that, do you?" "I didn't even ask for one. In the current political climate, I doubt anything that doesn't have the Sergeant's blessing would get the go-ahead, anyway." "You're overinflating the Sergeant's influence. He isn't even a full citizen of Skythia." "Oh, yeah, I almost forgot you two were all buddybuddy, now. I suppose it doesn't matter what I say, you won't believe me. Should I just make some story up for you, or do you actually care about the truth?" "You may not believe it, but I'm perhaps uniquely concerned with the truth, and with getting an accurate and complete understanding of the moral, ethical, legal, and personal concerns that bear on any given situation I might choose to take part in. So if you feel you have a valid explanation

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Teel McClanahan III for why you turned on a device that would have destroyed Skythia and killed everyone in it within a matter of seconds, I'd be glad to hear it." Brady looked at a timer ticking away on his handheld, asking, "Do you have... four and a half minutes?" "Sure. Why? What happens in four and a half minutes? Another one of these goes off?" "If I told you, it would ruin the surprise." Job's look became more stern, as though he was about to stop using conversation to get answers out of Brady and begin using his more painful powers of persuasion. "But no, no, no worry, it isn't another Mark II. You can see plainly that there are only two Mark II's missing from these shelves. The one in your hands now, and the one you destroyed a couple of moments ago." "That doesn't really answer my question." Job took a step toward Brady, for emphasis. "What happens in four and a half minutes that you want to distract me from?" "Well, not so long now, and I doubt you'd be able to reach it in time even if you left now, but in four minutes or so the Mark III that I launched will be far enough away that you couldn't reach it before it went off without your violating Special Relativity." "What does the Mark III do, and where is it headed?" Everything was going exactly according to Brady's plan. The last-minute appearance of a superhero had been the serendipity that created the perfect opportunity to live out the fullness of Brady's conception of being a supervillain. He'd worked for months on becoming a supervillain, but Skythia was just as accepting of a madman building doomsday devices as it was of zookeepers and mathematicians, and it had been fairly disappointing work. He'd been very much looking forward to blowing up Denver, to having the opportunity to look down on the fiery destruction of an entire urban area wrought by his own hand and then to laugh maniacally. When that had been taken from him, it had nearly driven

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Forget What You Can’t Remember him over the edge. Until he realized that he couldn't really exist as a supervillain without a nemesis to paint his machinations as evil by comparison, that is. Until he realized that Job's presence was exactly the providence he needed. Things had really been set in motion, then, and they were about to become quite interesting. Brady smiled. "I'll tell you where it's headed, and you can guess what it'll do there. The Mark III is on its way to the sun." And Job was gone, up and into the sky. "Good luck catching it!" Brady shouted after him, and then watched Job disappear into the blue.

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O

nce he'd left the atmosphere, Job found it much easier to accelerate. His ability to make out normal levels of detail regardless of distance had allowed him to find the Mark III doomsday device, dark against the sun, a distant silhouette of doom. He raced toward it as quickly as he could, exerting himself as hard as he could, hoping it wasn't just a goose chase he was on as he flew further and further from the Earth. Once again, he found his ability to survive without breath came in handy as he raced across the nearvacuum of space. Moving as hard and as fast as he could, Job found he had little idea of his actual speed. The sun grew slowly larger in front of him, and if he'd turned to look behind him he'd have seen the Earth rapidly receding, but there was no clear frame of reference for measuring speed in terms Job was familiar with. He didn't see any planets in his path toward the sun; Job wondered briefly about where in their orbits Venus and Mercury might be at that instant. Still, the point of interest that mattered, the doomsday device rocketing ahead of him, stayed central in his view. It grew steadily and reassuringly closer as he went, and after a couple of minutes' travel, he had been able to make out its details.

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Forget What You Can’t Remember In the hard, steady glow of the sun, which filled a large chunk of Job's perspective, there was enough penetrating radiation that he could examine the inner details of the device with quite a bit of clarity. It was not, as he had briefly suspected, just a dud. From his understanding of physics, cosmology, and his observations of the Mark II device, Job was able to deduce that this device, if indeed it was capable of surviving the rest of the journey to the sun, might be able to induce the sun to supernova. If the scale of certain key internal components was the same between the two devices, then the one Job was now observing was the size of a large single family home or a small church. Job tried to estimate, based on that perceived size and the rate of change of its perspective-adjusted portion of his viewing angle, how long it would take him to reach the device and how long it would take the device to reach the sun. Even when he determined that at his current rate he wouldn't be able to reach the device in time, the thought of whether he would be able to survive coming so close to the sun did not enter his mind. Instead he became even more determined, pushing harder, trying harder, putting more and more effort into trying to save the day, to save the sun, to save the entire solar system than he'd thought was possible. Not just at multiples of the speed of sound, Job moved orders of magnitude faster than he'd ever moved before. The increasingly bright, increasingly hot disc of light that was the sun seemed gradually to be shifting in hue from warm yellow to a cooler hue closer to whitish blue. Faster and faster. Pushing harder and harder. When the whole of his perception ahead of him transformed into a pure white emptiness and the whole universe behind him a black one, Job wasn't at first as concerned with the possibility that he'd reached the speed of light as he was with the concern that -not being able to see the device any longer- he might miss it. As quickly as he could, Job did the relativistic calculations to determine how long he needed to travel at the speed

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Teel McClanahan III of light to reach the device at the distance he'd estimated. Then, hoping that doing so wouldn't tear the fabric of spacetime apart or reinsert him into normal perception within the sun itself, Job tried gradually to slow down. Initially, since his perception didn't change instantly, he wasn't sure if he was stuck in motion. Then everything seemed to reappear suddenly before him. He stopped as quickly as he could. The device was right in front of him. His stopping distance wasn't as short as he'd hoped, and he overshot, but that allowed him to turn around in space and catch the device. Catch wasn't quite the right word for it. It struck him bodily, transmitting its virtual wall of inertial resistance instantly across his straining body. With the growing heat of the sun at his back and a curved sheet of metal hard against his face and body, Job's whole perception was again filled and again without meaningful information. He pressed with whatever strength he could muster to reverse the direction of the device's travel. He pressed, he pushed, he forced, he flew, he could not discern either progress of passage of time. In the blankness of this activity, Job was able once again to simply let himself go, to let himself lose himself to the absolute absence of quandary and of quarrelling special interests, and to do what he felt he was meant to do; right. Fortunately, Job hadn't quite struck the device directly at its center, and soon the force he was applying to it was turning its own direction of force further and further away from the sun. When the chill of empty space overcame the heat from the sun across his back, Job knew he needed to re-evaluate the situation. He backed away from the device to try to get some perspective. As he backed away, Job first noticed what seemed like a small, man-shaped dent near the front of its hull. Then, using his natural proclivity for math and his recently bolstered experience with interpreting changing astronomical perspectives, Job calculated that he had already moved the device to about halfway between the Earth and the sun. He noticed the pale disc of the moon

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Forget What You Can’t Remember floating just off the Earth's shoulder, realizing that he was in a unique position of being able to see both the full illumination of the Earth and of the moon at the same time, being so near to the sun. Finally, and not a moment too late, Job noticed that the device was making a broad, lazy spiral to correct its motion and return to a direct path into the heart of the sun. Job flew again toward the Mark III, this time less concerned about whether he'd be able to stop the device before it reached the sun, and aimed for its tail. He dove into the white-hot exhaust of the device and struck against the sides of the port with an intentional burst of aggression that literally disintegrated the entire exhaust port in an instant. From then on Job's fists were flying fast, left and right, crushing, smashing, splintering, disintegrating and otherwise disabling and destroying components and subsystems of the device in a sort of logical order he'd determined from the internal examinations of it he'd made on his initial approach. It was a sort of supersonic disarming of the sun-destroying device; delicate application of brute force. In seconds, Job reached the inward impression of his own silhouette on the forward shielding of the device, and paused. He was surrounded by a cloud of wreckage, dust, debris, the inert remains of a once potentially devastating device, now floating harmlessly toward a sun that would consume all with hardly a flicker of recognition. Job felt weightlessness in a more profound way than he had while flying on Earth, hovering there amongst Brady's junked aspirations, far from the pull of the gravity of any particular heavenly body. He felt still, silent, content. He considered just letting himself stay there, gazing softly backward upon the Earth as it shrank and shrank into the distance of millions of miles of cold, black emptiness. Job felt at home there, in space, away from Earth, but he did not know why. He did know that the stillness he perceived was a trick of relativity, and from careful observation of the rate

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Teel McClanahan III of the Earth's apparent reduction in size deduced that he was plummeting toward the sun inside a ball of space junk at a little over a third of the speed of light. He knew that while he was out there in the cool darkness of space, Brady was back on Earth, possibly putting more people's lives at risk with his increasingly destructive doomsday devices. His sense of justice would not allow him to let that happen. In a literal flash of light, Job burst into motion, immediately approaching his now better-understood maximum speed, just below the speed of light, so he could still see where he was going, back to Earth. Back to Skythia.

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"I

suppose you didn't come here to tell me I'll be dead in..." Brady swallowed hard and consulted his handheld, "six minutes, when the light and energy of the sun's supernova would have reached Earth, did you?" Job and Brady shook their heads nearly in time with one another, though Brady's gesture was one of disappointment at having been thwarted where Job's was disappointment that Brady had had the gall to try to eradicate all life in the solar system. "I am somewhat surprised to see you haven't bothered to leave your lab in the fifteen minutes it took me to stop your Mark III device. I presume you wanted to be caught, then?" "Perhaps. Or perhaps I am not finished watching you play my games. You are the one who stole the destruction of Denver from me, after all. It's only right that you repay me with equal entertainment to what I would have had at watching an entire city burn to the ground with the careful application of a single Mark I device. A not insubstantial amount of entertainment, I assure you." "Are you going to keep drawing this out, or are you going to tell me where your inevitable Mark IV device has been deployed? And if possible, the Mark V and Mark VI, please."

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Forget What You Can’t Remember "Oh, there aren't a V and VI, yet. It took all my time, effort, and genius to get the Mark IV online in time for this. It would be difficult to top it, anyway." "So where is it? You know this isn't going to end in your favor." "Of course not. Whether you stop me or not, I'm sure. In fact, I think if you look close enough, you may see that I'm already losing myself to the Mark IV, right now." Job looked at Brady carefully, and at first, on a surface, superficial inspection, he didn't see anything unusual. He didn't detect any of the unique radiation that had been emanating from the Mark II and that would have been coming from the Mark III if he hadn't stopped it. He didn't see anything attached to or beaming energy at Brady. Brady wasn't even holding his handheld. Then, as though seen only in a periphery or illusory way, Job noticed a very slight, slowly progressing and irregular trace outline expanding outward within Brady's abdomen. The impression it gave Job was as of a sort of glittering, twinkling light, but it was not within the visible spectrum and was significantly less intense than even starlight passing through Earth's atmosphere from billions of miles across space. Something, and it was something Job could not really identify from his own knowledge and experience, was inside Brady, doing something. It seemed to be getting faster. "How can I stop it? Is it some sort of poison? Is there an antidote behind some complex cryptex hidden in your lab?" "You can't stop it. It's not a poison, there's no antidote, and I'm not going to be the only victim." "What did you do? Contaminate the hydroponics and the cloning vats?" "Nothing so detectable, no. It just won't stop with me. I'm going to destroy everyone and everything in and on and near the Earth, and no one will have any idea." The procession of the outline of the Mark IV's progress was now visible

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Teel McClanahan III in waves across the surface of his torso and nearing his hips and shoulders and accelerating as it went. Job, without too much concern for his own safety, or of keeping Brady safe from excessive bursts of speed, grasped Brady firmly with both arms and, finding him to be quite solid even in the wake of the Mark IV's supposed destruction, flew him carefully up and out of the still-gaping hole he'd punched through the city to reach Brady's lab in the first place. Job paid special attention not to allow any part of Brady to come into contact with any part of the city as they passed it by, and in less than a second they were as far from the city as the city was from the earth. Job felt the Mark IV cross over to his costume, a tingling he could feel crawling across his skin and a twinkling he could see in his peripheral vision, and he knew it was too late to let go of Brady to try to save himself, so he held on, pushing him out to arms' length so they could speak face to face. "You haven't stopped it, and you've certainly sealed your own fate by touching me." Job could see the glow slow down slightly as it reached Brady's brain. Then, a glint in his eye as a spark née sparkle of evil, both eyes rolled back as Brady's brain underwent the Mark IV's unstoppable expansion, snapping back into focus and eye contact a moment later. "That's it," continued Brady as though there had been no interruption at all, "the villain you were after has been stopped. Destroyed. Exists no more. Soon, neither will the hero you were before." Job saw the last of the glow reaching Brady's extremities as he'd been speaking, and knew that whatever the Mark IV had been doing to him was done. Job could feel its progress across the surface of his own body moving at an even faster pace than it had moved through Brady, reaching the bottoms of Job's feet and the top of his head before it could even get to Brady's shoes. Then it was over. Job knew he'd somehow been able to thwart Brady's plan, though he didn't know how, exactly. "You're wrong. You've failed."

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Forget What You Can’t Remember Brady kept a close watch on Job's eyes. Brady couldn't see radiation, there was no way for him to see the progress of his plan except by the tell-tale momentary lapse in eye contact when Job's mind was destroyed. Brady watched closely, intensely, waiting, but it didn't come. He screamed. He wailed. He cursed. "NO! You couldn't be that invulnerable. You couldn't be immune. No!" He struggled to get free. "Let me go!" He squirmed and flailed and kicked his legs in the air. "Before they all shut down!" Job's grip was sufficient. "Ah, so I may stop you, yet." Job began flying up and up into the air until he was nearly too high for Brady to find breath enough to survive. "Is the answer in your handheld?" "Let me go!" Job did as he was asked. Brady screamed as he fell. In an instant, accompanied by a brief flash of light, Job was in Brady's lab again, and had Brady's handheld in hand. He paused long enough to verify that it contained the relevant information about the Mark IV, and to watch the increasingly familiar glow crawl across and through the handheld, before disappearing in another flash of white light. He hadn't touched down, or touched anything but the handheld, and had made sure it hadn't transmitted the Mark IV's effects to the surface it had been on; Job didn't want his own carelessness to be the source of an unnecessary outbreak. Then, before Brady had had time to gasp a second time between terrified screams, Job was holding him up, again at arm's length, with one hand. "So the Mark IV is a sort of self-replicating nano-machine?" Job was reading Brady's handheld from one hand while Brady himself struggled and shouted obscenities from the other. "Ingenious. Systematically converting all solid and liquid matter first into more Mark IV's and then the new Mark IV's converting the older Mark IV's into the ex-

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Teel McClanahan III act matter they used to be." Brady gave up his struggle, resigned. "I'd have doubted it would work on organic matter and complex proteins, but you're clearly still alive. And your mind seems intact from what I know of you, unchanged from before, which is a much more interesting feat." Job used his thumb to expertly page through the information on the handheld with one hand. "Not to mention they've all got built in shut-down systems, so they can't get out of control and leave the world perpetually in a state of ongoing destruction which, even considering the Mark IVs that got into this handheld, should all be self-converted back into their original materials before I can get you safely back to Skythia." Without another word, the two of them began their slow descent.

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248

Chapter 30, Part 1

"T

hey say he'll probably get off with little more than a warning, and an interesting record in the system." "How is that possible? He tried to destroy Skythia, not to mention the sun, and failing that, himself and everything on Earth one molecule at a time." "Well, to begin with, Skythia isn't in the business of making thoughts and intentions factors in the criminal code, as you are aware. Only actions. Not judgment based on why or what was intended, but on what actually happened. It's a pretty good system, generally, combined with the constant surveillance of everything in the city. But intending to destroy the city is not the same thing as destroying the city, and I stopped his device before it could do even a measurable amount of harm. I'm on the line for a lot more than Brady, in that regard, considering the hole I blew through half a dozen businesses and residences getting to Brady's lab. Luckily nothing irreplaceable was destroyed, or I'd probably be in much more trouble, right now. As far as breaking actual Skythian regulations, I've done a lot more wrong than the supervillain I was trying to stop." "That's terrible," Paul took a sip of his blue-hued beverage, "but I guess it makes sense, in terms of what's en-

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Forget What You Can’t Remember forceable and logically verifiable. Does the recording system even pick you up, when you're moving that fast?" "It's pretty amazing, really. If I hadn't ever broken light speed, they'd have a complete record of the entire encounter, including what happened in space. I've made an appointment with some of the engineers who had a hand in designing the system, to learn more about how it works. Something about quantum entanglement and careful measurement of fluctuations in quantum gravity and the behavior of unquantized light... I didn't really grasp it all at first, but I've had a lot on my mind, lately." "I can imagine." "Anyway, the potential destruction of the sun is way outside of Skythia's jurisdiction, and the effects of his Mark IV device are still being studied, but that isn't expected to go anywhere since the results of exposure are undetectable and logically identical to the initial conditions. There isn't much to be done about temporarily destroying a single molecule of something, especially when you restore it perfectly within almost no time at all." "Couldn't that have interfered with some of Skythia's more delicate experiments and systems?" "Maybe, but again we come to the fact that it didn't, I stopped him, so even if there was the possibility of some small infraction on his part, no crime was committed." "What about your costume? I thought you said it was effected by the Mark IV." A hole opened up in the center of their table and a series of robotic arms silently rose up out of it, removing their empty plates and depositing salad plates, silverware and napkins, and fresh beverages in front of Job and Paul. They began to eat as they continued their discussion. "Well, it began to effect me while I was within Skythia, so there's a certain degree to which I could possibly press charges, but since my costume is still intact and still functional, with no measurable difference from what I began

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Teel McClanahan III with, there's not much to such a charge. The laws about destruction of property in Skythia are mostly with regard to irreplaceable items and to the time and trouble of having replacements fabricated, since other concerns are mostly fabricated, themselves." The leaves of their salads spanned every color of the visible rainbow, most derived from various unique horticultures from Skythia's contacts around the world and then grown hydroponically on demand, and a few intentionally genetically re-engineered to fill in gaps in hue. "On the other hand, I clearly and forcibly kidnapped Brady, a Skythian citizen--" "Not a full citizen!" "Yes, but with significantly more rights than I have here, and certainly with more protections. I took him up and out of the city without his consent, and then while I held him, he clearly tried to escape and clearly stated that I did not have his permission to hold him." "And then you let him go, which is what he had been asking for!" "Directly endangering his life. Apparently he was suffocating on the way down, and suffered some damage to his cardiac system due to the shock of being released like that." "Seriously? Are you being charged?" "That's up to Brady, actually, and theoretically contingent on future health issues." "So he tried to blow up the city, destroy the solar system, and then to re-write every molecule of every person and everything in the world, and he's going to get off with a warning. You stopped him, saved not only the city but the entire world, and you're facing destruction of property, kidnapping, and assault charges." "Well, potentially facing quite a few charges, yes. Not to mention all the negative public opinion I earned at the competition. For a people relatively unaccustomed to violence, I guess my accidental burst of strength may have pushed the line too far."

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Forget What You Can’t Remember "Sure, and then you suddenly disappeared, and didn't return until after everyone had been extracted and most of the audience had left the building." "I guess finding out I was leaving for a good reason won't help change their minds, either." Job took a deep breath and let out a long sigh before finishing the last bite of his salad. A slender robotic arm cleared his setting as soon as he'd set down his fork. "Probably not. Especially if they hear about the charges against you. You practically killed two fighters, and then disappeared to go destroy other people's homes and businesses and kidnapped a Skythian citizen. Not exactly the best way to win over the hearts and minds of Skythia." "Well, I was never planning on staying. As far as I'm concerned, as soon as we can get your machine to work on my mind, I'll be glad to get out of everyone's way." Brady had finished his own salad, and the table began serving their main courses, fresh flatware, and a new round of drinks automatically. "Although I could probably get used to service like this..." "Yeah, I've never eaten here before. It was Brady's recommendation, actually. His friend Lance is the chef and -apparently- total experience designer. Most restaurants in town still have traditional wait staff, not robotic tables." "How did you and Brady meet?" "We were going to the same shrink, actually. We both quit her before getting any real help, and I started working on my machine instead." Paul took a sip of his beverage, now something deep red, "and Brady must have begun work on his own doomsday devices around the same time. He told me his ideas, but I guess I never took him seriously enough. We were both reacting in our own ways to the event that changed the world, and to the zombie outbreak in Denver." "Do you think the doomsday event caused the zombie outbreak?"

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Teel McClanahan III "I doubt it. As far as I know, the event just erased things, wiping out people, places, histories, memories, and more. You know the Sergeant better than I do; wasn't he dealing with zombies for years prior to the outbreak at Denver?" "Yeah, yeah, that's right. Sorry, I just... It's strange that the event happened at the same time as the zombie outbreak, is all." "Actually, according to the official record the Denver zombie outbreak began a few days prior to the doomsday event. From what I know about the event, it's possible that the zombies are the only thing that kept Denver from being erased from existence." "So zombies may have saved Denver by destroying it." "Maybe. And maybe, with the help of a few survivors still living in Skythia, and with my machine, Denver can be brought back to life." "It sounds like my recommendations helped." "We haven't had a chance to test it yet, but I've had my assistants and my AI working on upgrades and modifying the behavior of the machine according to your algorithms since yesterday. The projections this morning showed that we should easily be able to restore your entire memory in one pass, and that's the conservative estimate. The machine isn't really built for that level of energy throughput, but with today's adjustments, or perhaps a complete rebuild, your ideas should be able to restore large parts of the material world that was taken from us, instead of mere memories." "That's pretty exciting. Would you mind if we went there straight after lunch? I'm quite eager to get my memories back." "I don't see why not. When I left, they were making the final adjustments in preparation for a dry run this afternoon. We could turn it into a full trial, if you trust your own numbers."

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Forget What You Can’t Remember "That sounds perfect." Job took another bite of his main course. "This steak is perfect, too. What is this?" "It's Lance." "Sure, yes, you said he was the chef, but what kind of meat is this?" "I told you, it's Lance. It's lab-grown long-pig. Cloned from Lance's own flesh, specially handled and prepared to create the most succulent and delicious steak possible. Lance wanted to create a unique menu, and to control it at every level, according to Brady." Job took a long, hard look at the half-eaten steak on his plate. "So they're both crazy?" "Not crazy, as such, though they've each been pretty heavily effected by both the doomsday event itself, and the zombie outbreak." "Lance and Brady both survived the outbreak?" "They were both part of the Sergeant's team that went in to find survivors." Paul took another big bite of his own steak.

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Chapter 30, Part 2

J

ob positioned himself in the machine.

Everything had been checked. Everything had been double-checked. Paul set the countdown clock, and systems began to warm up. Equations had been optimized and maximized for the most possible reality correction given the limits of the materials in use. Job thought about the people he'd tried to save, the good he'd tried to do. Special requisitions for energy use had been put through and granted. Paul's eyes darted back and forth between the beautiful curves and output spikes generated by the corrected algorithms and Job's form, waiting patiently for restoration. Energy levels rose, automated systems clicked and whirred into motion, and heat and anticipation rose in equal measures in the lab. Job could see what was happening throughout the full depth of the machine, though faintly, and tried to clear his mind by watching the machine come to life around him.

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Forget What You Can’t Remember A subtle vibration, a high-pitched electronic noise, sounds building and filling the air as the people there stood silently waiting. Job wondered if it would hurt to have his past restored. Every short hair in the lab stood on end, the air reached a saturation point for static charge, it was uncomfortable to breathe. Every eye in the lab blinked, somehow, at once. Paul was startled to see a strange heap of blue and green cloth in the machine's heart and hoped it wouldn't interfere with the dry run. Information was stored, data was processed, curves were measured, the experiment had proved safe to attempt on a volunteer soon. Paul couldn't remember where he'd gotten the idea for the improvements to the machine and the algorithms, but couldn't deny the amazing results of his apparent flash of inspiration. Suddenly stopping work in his laboratory, Brady could remember both Job's intervention and a world without him.

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Chapter 31, Part 1

"S

o are you leaving me now, Sarge?"

"I don't give up that easily, Lorraine. I'm sure I can find another venture worth my while." "Your zombie training school is bust, what with the zombies disappearing, your mixed martial arts club is going to fall apart after the injuries interrupting the first public match, and they're revoking your license to run the dangerous animals habitat because of the escaped spiders. I was sure you'd be angry and packing to leave by the time I got home." "Just minor setbacks, all. The audience size for the martial arts competitions will only rise, and for the same reason putting a superhero on the bill did; people love to see blood. I know some of the fighters want to take a close look at the rules for the next set of bouts, but it's hardly falling apart. If they hadn't been expecting to get hurt, they shouldn't have been in the cage." "The news said one of the fighters lost three limbs! That's pretty severe, Sarge!" "They've all been reattached or replaced with more functional limbs by now. It's hardly a problem; he'll be even stronger and more capable for the next round!"

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Forget What You Can’t Remember "You think his wife will let him step into the ring again?" "She's already manipulated her way into unconditional membership for both of them for life, Lorraine. Or didn't you know she was a fighter, too?" "Fine, fine, well what about the zombies? That training program was your pride and joy! Don't tell me you're going to give it all up, just like that, and not come whining to me in a few months about hating it here." "Well, I'm not exactly going to give up on the zombies, altogether. I'm still scheduled to take a large task force down to the surface in a few days to scour the city. We've got to be absolutely certain that whomever or whatever cleared the city of zombies didn't leave any lurking behind before we declare it safe for people to start moving back to the city. Not to mention the investigation of how this all happened that I'm going to want to head up. I'm not giving up on Skythia, but if they won't stay here for as long as it takes to root out the truth about how the zombies were taken care of and how thorough the cleaning up was, I'll have to stay behind. It's been almost nine months since the initial outbreak, love, and a well-fed zombie could have already arrived in any of half a dozen other cities nearby by now. We've got to find a way to detect them, if they're there, and we've got to train the citizens of those nearest cities what to do if a zombie or two shows up out of the wilderness." "There's the old Sergeant I know and love. Turning a beautiful day in a zombie-free city into a potential tragedy and months of impossible work. Plus a chance to try to turn your zombie training camp into a franchise operation, again. That's what I was afraid of hearing." "I don't expect it to take months and months. There are some pretty bright minds in Skythia. Part of the delay in going back down to Denver has been waiting on the development of a new type of scanning tool that should allow us to sweep the city in a matter of days, and about a fifty

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Teel McClanahan III mile radius within a matter of weeks. From what I know of the scientists here, by the time we're halfway done with that they'll have an even better scanner and we'll finish a couple hundred miles' radius within no time at all. Don't be such a pessimist. I know we've already disrupted the city's normal route by a week or two, and some residents are eager to get on the move again, but that's why I said I might stay behind to finish the job. Not for good, Lorraine, just until our scans were done, and then it should be no problem to rendezvous with the city somewhere down the line." "How do I know you aren't going to abandon me for your precious zombies?" "I love you, Lorraine! If I haven't showed that in the time since we met, I hope you'll let me keep trying until I do." "Oh, Sarge, you don't need to convince me you love me. I already know. I just worry that love might not be enough for you. I worry because, when we first got to Skythia, you were ready to leave it, and everything you stayed for has started to come apart at the seams." "Not everything, Lorraine. Not us. Not you and me, together. Not even our citizenship, here, at that. We're both well on our way to becoming full-fledged Skythian citizens and, despite some recent setbacks with my private concerns, we're both pretty highly regarded in the community." "Except for the family that got captured by your giant spiders. I doubt they'll be voting for you or anything involving you in upcoming votes." "You might be surprised. I know it was my spiders that caught them up like that, but we proved that their escape was due to the unexplained destruction that blew through several levels of homes and businesses, not due to my own negligence. Plus, then I found them and saved them all before they became spider food. I'd like to go over the recordings one more time just to be sure they didn't leave any eggs

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Forget What You Can’t Remember somewhere in the city I may have missed, but I'm pretty sure that situation has worked out alright." "What about your license?" "It isn't being revoked entirely, we're just changing the terms. I just have to move to a more secure facility, isolated from residences and built with the latest and strongest materials available, to keep the animals -and the public- as safe as possible. They're revoking my license to operate it the way I did before, is all. And that hardly matters anyway, because the only license that matters to me is this one." Sarge tapped his handheld and showed the display to Lorraine, who began reading the fine print there. She didn't even notice him going down on one knee, she was so wrapped up in the realization of what Sarge had handed her. Lorraine looked up and said "Yes" before the Sergeant could even finish getting out the ring.

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Chapter 31, Part 2

"W

hat do you want?" Mary wished she had a door on hinges instead of an automated sliding door, so she could slam it in Paul's face. "I'm shutting everything down, Mary. It's over. The machine is off, the AI are already dismantling and recycling it." He shoved his handheld toward her. "Look, the property is already back on the market. The lab is shut down. It's over." "You did this for me?" "I'm not going to lie to you, Mary. It isn't just you. There was a..." Paul had been trying to come up with different explanations for why he was shutting down to give to various interested parties, from assistants to volunteers, and took a moment to decide which version of the story he should give to Mary. "Well, suffice it to say that with the latest version of the equations we found some startling new information." This wasn't entirely true, and wasn't a story he could tell to anyone he thought might actually look at the data from that last dry run. From what the records showed was a dry run, even if he and Brady knew it hadn't been. "The event that erased so much didn't just erase, it added, too." "What do you mean?"

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Forget What You Can’t Remember "Do you mind if I come inside?" Paul didn't want to keep discussing such a delicate matter out in the open, in Mary's hallway. He'd kept his entire line of research pretty quiet, and was now trying to do what he could to keep it silent. Mary motioned him in, and they sat facing each other from different chairs. "The machine, since I talked to you last, I've made some improvements. Balanced some equations better. That balance meant that instead of just restoring what had been taken from us, the machine could also take away what had been added to the world." "What was added? I still don't understand what you're trying to say. You mean, some of this isn't real?" Mary's arm gestured at the room around them. "I don't know. I hardly know what the word real means, anymore. You've been telling me all year that this, now, this world, this life is reality and I need to accept it and live in it. I thought, I was so sure about it, and I thought that what we had before, the world before the doomsday event was what was real, and this world was some hollow shell or skeleton of that reality, just waiting for me to find a way to restore it to its former glory. Now I see that this world wasn't just hollowed out and left empty and cold. Whatever took away from us also gave to us. Whatever the event was, it didn't just scrape away the old paint of the world, but it put on a new coat of paint, in a more vibrant palette than was used before. I was longing for the past without really opening my eyes to see what I had been offered in exchange." "Which is what I've been telling you since you first got me to talk much at all. Which is what I've been repeating to you, over and over again, like talking for my own benefit. You never listened. You've been stubborn and short sighted and ignorant." "I have." He spoke quickly, didn't let her go on and on about his faults before he could admit to them on his own. "I have been all those things and worse. I didn't give you the attention you deserved. I didn't listen to you. I didn't

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Teel McClanahan III pay attention to every time you told me you didn't want that past restored, didn't want me to be working on the machine. I didn't hear you when you told me about all the good things in your life and in your future, and I didn't do a single thing to help or support you in your pursuit of that future. I kept my head down and my eyes on a prize I should never have been seeking after. I should have spent all that effort on you. On us. I should have put my time and energy and focus on doing as much as I could for our relationship and our future, instead of simply burying my head in a past I didn't even know for sure was worth restoring. I should have loved you better." Mary reached out, across the space between them, and Paul's hands met hers halfway, holding them tenderly. "Before doomsday, after doomsday, I was obsessed. I was obsessed with something I didn't understand. I was obsessed with trying to find a way to control it, prevent it, reverse it, something, anything but to simply accept it. It gave me you, Mary. It put us together just as it rewrote the rest of the world. It put you in front of me, and I should have accepted you. I should have turned my obsession fully over to you. For a few days, I nearly did. It came so naturally to me, my first instinct on seeing you, but I got distracted, I didn't trust it, and I went back to old, familiar ways. I went back to my old ways and the gift the doomsday event had tried to give to me, the gift of love that you tried to give to me, got lost in the shuffle. And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Mary. I'm ready to do whatever it takes to make it up to you. Whatever it takes. I feel ready to obsess over you. To love you more and longer than I ever spent looking forward to and looking back on the event. To give you more of myself than anyone lost to it, more of myself than anyone gained. I apologize for taking so long to see it, for not listening to you when you tried to explain it, for not seeing what I was doing to you and to us and to the future we could have had together."

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Forget What You Can’t Remember "It isn't too late," Mary's voice was soft, and it felt like a warmth spreading through his chest as it reached his ears, "and I want to, but how can I trust you, Paul? How can I trust that this sudden reversal will last?" "I guess I'll have to try to earn your trust over time, to show you through my actions over the years that I mean it, but I know I'll never forget, never go back. I just..." Paul's voice faltered, his eyes closed and his face dropped. "I didn't want to have to tell you, I don't know what you'll think of me, but I really do love you, and I can't bear to keep things from you." Paul looked up again, met Mary's eyes again, watched her reaction, continued anyway. "I've done a terrible thing, Mary, which cannot be undone. I took forces I didn't understand under my control and ended up doing more harm than good. I erased a man from existence." Mary pulled her hands back, suddenly, saying "What! Who?" "It's literally impossible for you to know, Mary. It's not even like the name of your old boss, which might have been restored by altering the effects of the doomsday event that removed him from reality. This person must not have existed prior to the event. This person was, apparently, fictional or imagined or... Well, we really don't know for sure, but for whatever reason, the event, as it erased, also created. It brought into reality figures from fiction, from dreams, from imaginations, and wove them into the world we live in, now. This person was one of those. He was a superhero. He could fly, and had super strength and speed at least. He thwarted a villain intent on the destruction of the city and perhaps the entire solar system, and who knows what else he could have done, but..." Paul was still reluctant to say it, even though Brady's story had checked out against the updated mathematics, and all his understanding of the event's effects. His eyes kept moving down to his shoes, then looking back up at Mary's frozen face. "But I used my upgraded machine on him, and it restored him completely to what he

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Teel McClanahan III was before doomsday. Completely. He never existed. He's not real. I had lunch with him, and I can show you the record of that, and it's like the records of everything in your life prior to doomsday; if you know where to look you can see it's gone, but at first glance, nothing seems out of the ordinary. So the city is still saved, but he never saved it. And he'll never save anyone again. And it's my fault." Paul felt as though he was rambling, he felt unsure, but even in long pauses, Mary's face remained blank, shocked, and her voice remained stilled. Paul just continued to babble, releasing an emotional torrent he knew he couldn't let out with anyone else. "It's my fault he's gone. Never was, really, and my fault that the world is poorer for that loss. I don't think there was any way I could have known, could have predicted such a thing, but I can't in good conscience continue my work. What if your memories of prior to the event are incomplete because you didn't exist? What if I had put you in the machine instead of him and had lost you forever? Not to mention that the device was getting better and better at every iteration, and was able not just to erase his memories but to erase him from the world entirely. What if Skythia hadn't been real? Or some other city, full of life? I could accept trying to restore life that had been erased from the world, but at what cost? How many of the people alive today might have to give up their lives to restore the past, and who am I to decide? I don't know what force caused all this, maybe some advanced alien race, maybe some sort of god, but I've given up the vain notion that I might have a better understanding of right and wrong and what is just than it does. I've given up almost everything, Mary. Everything but you. Everything else just..." Paul looked around the room as though understanding and clarity might be waiting for him just over Mary's shoulder. "I can't tell what's real, I can't tell what's right, all I know is that you're here, all I know right now is that I love you."

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Forget What You Can’t Remember Mary took a long time to try to process what Paul was saying to her. Mixed up into what she had been longing to hear was a much more complicated and strange story and she didn't know if it were true or Paul were crazy. She didn't know if perhaps he'd used his machine on his own mind one too many times and crossed one too many wires and had now gone off the deep end. She didn't know if she could trust him. She didn't know if this leap of his would last. There was so much she didn't know that in the end she just repeated to him the one thing she did know, "I love you," and reached out to take him in her arms once again.

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Appendix A An excerpt from Lost and Not Found, where Paul explains the coming doomsday, about a month before the events of Forget What You Can't Remember.

P

aul brightened up at the thought of being able to explain it all again. Not very many people in the grand scheme of things took him seriously, but he knew he was right, and that everyone had a right to know. “The world as we know it is going to end on February 29th, this year. I’ve been saying it for years and years—“ John interrupted, “He has. Since high school. Of course, back then it was coming on a different day…” “Yes, yes, I’ve known for over a decade that this day was coming, and have been trying to warn people about it.” “Then why is this the first time I’ve heard you mention it?” “Because you’ve been very lucky,” “Until now,” finished John.” “Give it a rest, guys.” Paul turned so his back was as much to the two of them as possible while still facing Linda, and continued. “This isn’t some sort of flawed biblical translation or based on a secret code in the Torah or the Cabbala or the Qu’ran. I haven’t joined a doomsday cult that told me to give them all my worldly possessions because we’re all going to die next month. I’ve simply known that the world was going to end on February 29th, this year, definitively for, like these two fools said, just over ten years.”

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“Leap day? I thought the loonies were saying it was supposed to be Cinco De Mayo last year or something.” “That was based on bad math.” “Oh yeah, that’s right. I saw some weirdos on a Jerry Springer follow-up episode trying to explain why the world hadn’t ended. They said they’d fouled up their ‘celestial navigation’ or something, and it would be this year instead.” “Weirdos aside, that’s just what I’ve been trying to tell people like these two. I’m not alone. I was alone back in high school, but as soon as I double-checked my own math years ago and placed the date properly on Leap Day I’ve learned of more and more groups and individuals who say that they have discovered one way or another that something big is coming on February 29th, this year. A couple of years back, some scientists projected that the Earth’s magnetic field, which reverses polarity about every ten thousand years, is scheduled to reverse again on February 29th. Who knows what catastrophic effects something like that could have on global climate or electronic systems? The last time it happened, the world descended into an Ice Age. “A group of monks have recently split off from the Catholic Church, saying that the Church’s position that Jesus’ second coming should be kept secret is blasphemy. They are on a world tour, going from country to country, trying to make known their belief based on secret texts they were charged with copying and keeping secret, that Jesus will return to Earth on February 29th. These are not religious fanatics. Most of them had spent decades in monasteries, copying the old texts by hand in total silence. Something they read there must have given them that date. I’m not saying I necessarily believe we’ll see Jesus walking on Earth on Leap Day, but clearly something big is about to happen. “You’ve heard of the SETI project that analyses information coming in from radio telescopes around the world?” “Of course. My computer used to crunch numbers for them while I was away or asleep.”

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“Do you know why you said ‘used to’? They found something.” “I think I remember getting an email about that… but they said they had like, 200 best guesses, right?” “If you go back and read that email carefully you’ll see there’s a little more subtlety to it than you first noticed. I know the guy who wrote that email, and he was pretty sure he’d get in trouble if he just revealed the whole thing, so he put it all in there so that no one would know the truth if they just glanced quickly at the email before deleting it. But he got it all in there. You see, back at the beginning of the SETI@home project, the whole thing was basically just for a touch of good PR, to make it look like the US was still interested in searching for extra-terrestrial signs of life. The entire thing cost them only a few thousand dollars to set up and a couple thousand a year to maintain by assigning the duties to existing employees, but it did wonders for their public image after decades of spending millions and finding nothing. They never really expected to find anything, since they were basically feeding static from random corners of the universe into everyone’s software. “They had set up a pretty robust system anyway, despite thorough skepticism by the folks in charge, and every piece of data was sent to at least two computers so the results could automatically be verified by the massive redundancy of the distributed system. Then, not six months ago, duplicated results started appearing from out of the static. They quietly stopped sending out new data to clients about a month after that, instead re-sending all the data that had produced what looked like positive results, and then not long after they had triple and quadruple-checked all theses ‘best-guesses’, you received that email. “What it actually said was that they had found these things that might be signs of intelligent life, and they were going on hiatus.”

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“That’s right… I thought it didn’t make sense that they would stop when they’d finally found what they’d been looking for all along…” “Exactly. But they had a good excuse. If you’d read further down the email, you’d have seen that the excuse for their hiatus was that they were petitioning for more funding. See, the big Arecibo radio telescope is not cheap to rent time on, and they needed to convince congress to give them the funding to rent time from Arecibo to get new readings from the points in space these ‘best guesses’ seemed to be coming from. And before the year was up.” “Before Leap Day, I presume?” “Exactly, plus time and money to crunch the numbers on real supercomputers instead of the slow distributed network. Of course, you can probably see why they want more to prove themselves wrong at this point than to prove themselves right, as you might have expected.” “Wait, no. I don’t understand. You’re talking me in circles now. Why would they want to prove themselves wrong?” “I’ll explain… See, if they know they’re counting down to February 29th, they already have all the data they need. More than enough, actually. You see, what they found, what these bits of regularity in a random sea of static represented, was a countdown of sorts. Yes, it happened to be encrypted to look like static, but so is every call from your digital mobile phone – if picked up by a standard radio receiver, any digital mobile phone’s transmission is as much like static as the seemingly empty hiss of deep space has always been. And yes, it was coming from a series of points in space where there are no stars or galaxies evident for the signals to originate from, but hidden there where no one would have seen it but for a silly PR stunt by SETI, was a countdown. If you go to the SETI@home website you can find a star map showing the ‘best guesses’ they want to check; you’ll see they all form a narrow, straight band through space, and not parallel to the

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milky way, but almost perpendicular to it and to the plane of our solar system.” “Okay, but why did they bother shutting the system down in the meantime? Why not keep the whole thing secret and just keep feeding us the old data?” “Remember I said it wasn’t costing them much to maintain SETI@home, right?” She nodded. “The urgency and weight of what they found called for more resources than they were budgeted to have for the next several years, just to put together a ‘solution’ of some kind. They’ve at the very least got to prepare for the possible arrival of a new message, or even a visitor, from another place in the universe. They have to make every person they have access to and every computer under their power focus on being as ready for whatever is coming as possible, and they have to keep it a secret. They’re drafting scripts for the President to follow if two-way communication is called for, scripts for the President to read in the event of as many possible scenarios as they can imagine to come or calculate for.” “Well, that at least is believable,” interrupted John, “the President definitely needs to have someone else tell him what to say.” Linda ignored John’s comment, “Why would the SETI scientists be involved with writing scripts? Doesn’t the White House have a staff of writers?” “I may have misstated; the SETI people are simply doing everything they can to give the writers the information they need to give the President the information he’s going to need. They’re like full-time technical advisors. Most of them only do analyses, few of them actually even interface with non-SETI people anymore. It’s just the original team there that was supposed to be running the distributed network, not any new people; they don’t want this to leak out by having a job fair. From what I’ve heard, the place is running full-tilt, and almost out of steam already.”

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John interrupted again, “Well if you’ve heard, they’ve obviously let it leak out somehow, don’t you think?” “I told you, I know someone on the inside. I’ll get to that in a minute, John.” Paul glared at John, apparently believing that would keep him quiet, and turned back to Linda to begin again. “They’ve been using the access they can reasonably use without raising eyebrows or too much expense to monitor the signals almost 24 hours a day. They’re analyzing and re-analyzing the signals they’ve already got, and the ones coming in live, listening to the countdown, trying to divine something more from the information in the signal, from the methods by which this information may have been originally encoded, about the intelligence that did so.” Paul paused for breath. “Why are they using this frequency above any others? Why are they encrypting it in just this way, and no others? What makes these methods preferable over anything Man has come up with to date, and what does that tell us about the intelligence that produced them? Is there any natural phenomenon that could possibly explain these signals that has not yet been considered? All of this and more must be addressed, and they must also come up with a decision about how to handle PR if something shows up on February 29th and they’re ready for it but have not let the public know anything about it. Do you think you could trust your government if they knew an intelligence from deep space was on its way to Earth and they knew exactly when it was coming, but told you nothing of it?” He paused again, this time waiting for a response. “I uhhh… I suppose I’d assume they knew what they were doing in not telling me. Probably wanted to avoid riots in the streets and unanswerable questions from the press.” “Well, the government can’t trust all the citizens of the world to be as trusting and intelligent as you, so they’re already working on the spin control for an event that they aren’t even sure is going to occur. You see, the answers to all

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their questions are still more questions. They have been unable to discern anything about the source of this countdown by what they have available to them. They are as in the dark as they were when they first determined that it was a countdown at all. Interestingly, they have been able to locate information dating back to the earliest radio telescopes regarding the particular patch of space that this signal is coming from, and the countdown was always there. It has been counting down to February 29th for decades longer than I have.” “You seem to know an awful lot about this,” John said with a big interrupting grin on his face, “are you secretly working for the government, intentionally feeding us the very misinformation you’re saying is being created to cover the government’s ass in this?” “Just because I have the information doesn’t mean I work for the government. As you both know, I have become increasingly vocal about the upcoming event in recent years. I’ve even got a pretty strong following on the web by some of the smartest and most knowledgeable people from around the world, all sharing stories of how they found evidence in their own fields that something is going to happen on February 29th. Archeologists who found ancient prophecies that refer to the date, geologists whose studies have shown them patterns in the Earth’s crust that should be repeating in just over a month, astronomers who have seen signs that something very massive seems to pass through our solar system like clockwork, throwing the orbits and velocities of all the moons and planets a little more out of perfect alignment every time it passes by. More and more evidence is appearing the closer we get to the date. “These aren’t crackpots. These are experts in their fields, often with colleagues backing them up, but too afraid of publishing anything for fear of being labeled frauds by their peers. They want to tell someone what they’ve found without losing their jobs and their funding and they find my site and share what they’ve found. Some of them have been

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from SETI, which is how I know what’s going on there – they’ve been very forthright with the information. Working together, the astronomers have even shown that the path described by the source of the SETI message is the same as the path of whatever has been throwing off the orbits of every object in the solar system. You wouldn’t believe how worked up figuring that out got them. Of course, the SETI scientists couldn’t tell their colleagues any more than the astronomers could talk about the SETI message; where the information came to them from would be called immediately into question and they would be dismissed as paranoid conspiracy theorists. “The same way these two,” Paul gestured to him and John, sipping from their sodas and keeping their eyes lowered sheepishly, “dismiss me.” Linda took a moment to consider all of what Paul had just said. “Well, Paul, considering the weight of evidence you say exists, I don’t know how I could do anything but agree with you. Still, even you admit that no one really knows what is or isn’t going to happen on February 29th. So… I think I’ll keep my eyes open and watch for some interesting news that day. Maybe you’ll surprise us all by being right.” “That’s more open-minded of you than most people have been. Thank you for not dismissing me outright.” “Have you ever considered going into sales? I get the feeling that with something people could actually see and feel, you could convince vegans to buy meat grinders.” Paul smiled at this, while he and John laughed out loud, though Linda wasn’t sure if they thought she was being sarcastic or ironic, or if they were just being idiots. She continued, “What are your plans for Leap Day, Paul? Do you have a bunker or something?” “No, I don’t have a bunker of my own, although if worse comes to worse, there are people who have invited me to join them in theirs. I actually could have access to NORAD, if it really came down to it. That’s how high the knowledge

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of this goes, and how much everyone is glad I could bring them together on this. Still, it all really depends on what is learned in the next month or so. If the geologists are right, it may pay to be airborne that day, but if some of the other theorists are right, it won’t matter where in the solar system you are, you’re going to be in trouble. I, of course, do not actually believe that this will be an extinction level event, considering the geological record of it goes back through several eras of life including at least the last of the dinosaurs. If it was going to kill everything on Earth, how could plants and animals survive to the present day? “That is not to say that there are not those who believe that all life is indeed threatened. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that some vast alien force is going to show up and destroy all life not deemed relevant, or judged to be worthy of continued existence. Like there’s some sort of universal traveling judgment system for all life that comes around periodically to eradicate unworthy species. That is the sort of theory that I don’t dismiss outright, but which gives communities like ours the negative stigma of the schizoid conspiracy theorist that we tend to have assigned to us. “At least there is some evidence of species surviving these periodic world-wide events. Sharks, for instance, appear to have been around for every single one of them. Which has lead some of our group to believe that the only way to survive will be to descend into the oceans. They suggest that Atlantis was actually the only city to survive the last time this happened, and they did so by knowing it was coming and taking their entire population under water. When they ascended, presumably March 1st, they knew they had to populate the world, so they spread out to the far corners of the Earth, abandoning their original home and Atlantis, their underwater refuge, forever. This would explain how human life appeared on every continent around 10,000 years ago at once; the originators were masters of the oceans and had no trouble reaching the Americas or Australia. Some go on to

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say that the myth of the great flood, which has been found in the ancient histories of every culture, is actually the same myth as Atlantis. That it was not the entire world covered with water and only a boatful of people and creatures survived, but that something else happened and the only ones to survive were the ones who covered themselves with water. That anyone above the surface of the ocean was destroyed. “Personally, I’m going to wait until the most possible information is available before I make any final plans about where I’ll be when Leap Day rolls around. As it stands now, there is space set aside for me in an underwater refuge, in NORAD as I said before, on the International Space Station, on two flights at supersonic speed, one East and one West, in case we have to race towards or away from the direction of the Earth’s rotation, a few other underground bunkers in various locations around the world, so that no matter what country or province I happen to be in when that day comes, and no matter how difficult it ends up being to get from one part of the world to another … you know, in case word really does get out and mass panic sets in … I’ll have a place to go. There are certain advantages to being able to plan for something like this so far in advance.” “It sounds like you really have all your ducks in a row there, Paul. You’re sure there’s no advice you could give someone like me about where to be?” “You mean someone without access to the private sanctuaries of the hundred most paranoid people in the world today?” “That’s just about it exactly. The average Joe.” “Probably in front of a TV. And not just when you wake up Sunday morning. February 29th starts well before that. What time zone will you be in on February 28th?” “Pacific. I’ll be back at the home office in Portland by then.” “Well, what most people don’t realize about the way world time really works is when the new day starts. Because

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of the nineteen time zones between Portland and the International Date Line, February 29th starts for the first time in the world when it is only 4AM on February 28th in Portland. Really, if something catastrophic and global is going to happen on Leap Day, it should be on the news by the time you wake up February 28th. Or we could all be dead by then.” “That seems really weird. Are you sure you have that right?” “Yes. In fact,” Paul paused as he did a quick calculation in his head, “by the time February 29th rolls around to Portland, it will be 7PM at the International Date Line, where all dates begin. Whatever’s going to happen will almost certainly have begun before you even go to bed Saturday night.” “That’s almost as wild as the prophecy you’re selling. Makes international time sound pretty messed up.” “I’ve always thought it was a little weird, myself. Still, it’s worked for nearly a hundred years. Why give it up now?” “Yeah, as long as insanity works for you, why give it up?” He and John couldn’t help but giggle at this one, but Paul didn’t seem to realize the slight. “That’s the way of the world. Has been for years.” It was at about this time that Ray and Sally showed up and caught enough of Paul’s ranting to order strong drinks for each other, and offered to buy a round for the whole group if they would stop talking about the end of the world. Paul knew to leave well enough alone and gave Linda his card, with a link to his website so she could find out more if she was interested. Turning back to face the rest of the group directly, he simply said “After about a month, it won’t matter what you do, you won’t be able to stop hearing about it.”

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Appendix B An excerpt from Lost and Not Found, describing the doomsday event upon which Forget What You Can't Remember hinges.

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verything was wrong. Up was down. Left was right. In was out. Black was white. Here was there, and nothing could make it right. Something fantastic was happening. Most of the people who had guessed that something was coming would never have believed it if you’d told them what was really going to happen. And that was just the thing it was looking for. Unbelievers. Seculists. Anything and everything so grounded in what is “real” and what is “possible” and what is “impossible” which simply could not allow for … this to be happening. It found everyone who couldn’t believe that faeries could exist outside of fairy tales. It found every device so perfectly understood and defined “scientifically” that it could hold no mystery or magic for the world. It found every horse that had given up talking or dreaming it could be a unicorn. It found every toad that had never believed it could become a prince. It found every sailor who never once feared a giant sea creature might sink his ship and gobble him up. It found every man, woman and child who had so given up on anything more than a dreary and totally un-fantastic existence that they allowed themselves to live in the totally believable (yet totally forgettable) world built by those who

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more strongly rejected the possibility that there could ever be more than meets the eye. It found every town, large and small, far and wide, which would never be able to believe what was about to happen, and once it had found all these and many more like them, it began. The finding had only taken a few of the picoseconds after midnight had strolled so casually across the international dateline, and both midnight and the international dateline itself were among those found. And then, without warning or question or giving any of the found the chance to reverse its trick, it disbelieved them all. It didn’t believe in toads without dreams of princedom. It didn’t believe in sailors without nightmares about sea creatures. It didn’t believe in Chicago or Munich or Johannesburg or in Russia or Canada or Uruguay. It didn’t believe in “middle management” or “human resources” or “downsizing.” It disbelieved in anything it had found, and it disbelieved in them so strongly that at first they began to doubt. And then they began to accept it. And finally it disbelieved in them so much that they simply didn’t exist. When it disbelieved in something, it did it completely. When it disbelieved Lake Erie, it didn’t leave behind a driedup lake – that would mean that it had believed that there had once been a Lake Erie. No, when it disbelieved Lake Erie, the lake had simply never existed. It was the same with everything else it had found, and so the whole face of the world along with its entire history changed, and there should be no way anyone left could consciously know the change had taken place. It moved on then, not even a second after it had arrived, as though it had never slowed down or stopped. It moved on and left the Earth behind as it had never been, but perhaps as it had dreamed it could be. It left the Earth full of dreams and dreamers, and in another cycle – about ten thousand orbits of the Earth around its sun – it would return again. Check up again. Be sure the universe was mov-

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ing forward dreaming. Only those who couldn’t dream of something better could make each world worse, so it kept its course, always dreaming of dreamers’ dreams coming true.

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About the Author Teel is an independent author, artist, creative visionary, blogger, publisher, podcaster, and sometimes filmmaker. You can find out more about him and his other stories, novels, poetry and more by visiting Modern Evil Press: http://modernevil.com/ Or email him: [email protected]

Acknowledgments I want to thank my wife for all her love, support, and assistance with my first completed novel since we got married last year. I'd also like to thank the Terrill family, owners of Intatto Coffee, who provided a welcome atmosphere and a delicious menu while I worked on this manuscript, unmatched by any national chain coffee shop I've found. Thanks go to my brother Heath, my sister Angela, and to the people who volunteered through Twitter to help copy edit: @templestark and @jasonmitchener, and also to Amber, who offered some last-minute assistance as well. It takes a lot of eyes to catch little mistakes; your help has been invaluable.

Books by Teel McClanahan III Lost and Not Found Forget What You Can't Remember More Lost Memories Dragons' Truth The Vintage Collection Worth 1k --- Volume 1 A collection of poetry instead of pictures

Worth 1k --- Volume 2

Working, eating, pain and longing

Untrue Tales From Beyond Fiction Recollections of an Alternate Past -a series-

Book One:

An Introduction To Dodgeball, or Conception and Induction, or How To Begin An Apocalypse

Book Two:

The Twofold Invasion, or Penetration and Destruction, or How To Make Love With Twins

Book Three:

Escape From Exile, or Confusion and Contraction, or How To Get Out Of Hell