"They used to need a machine the size of a bathroom just to house the magnets." She laid me back on the couch and stretched the mesh across my skull. "That's the only outright miracle you get with a portable setup like this. We can find hot spots, and we can even zap 'em if they need zapping, but TMS effects fade after a while. We'll have to go to a clinic for anything permanent."
"So we're fishing for what, exactly? Repressed memories?"
"No such thing." She grinned in toothy reassurance. "There are only memories we choose to ignore, or kinda think around, if you know what I mean."
"I thought this was the gift of happiness. Why—"
She laid a fingertip across my lips. "Believe it or not, Cyggers, people sometimes choose to ignore even good memories. Like, say, if they enjoyed something they didn't think they should. Or—" she kissed my forehead— "if they don't think they deserve to be happy."
"So we're going for—"
"Potluck. You can never tell 'til you get a bite. Close your eyes."
A soft hum started up somewhere between my ears. Chelsea's voice led me on through the darkness. "Now keep in mind, memories aren't historical archives. They're—improvisations, really. A lot of the stuff you associate with a particular event might be factually wrong, no matter how clearly you remember it. The brain has a funny habit of building composites. Inserting details after the fact. But that's not to say your memories aren't true, okay? They're an honest reflection of how you saw the world, and every one of them went into shaping how you see it. But they're not photographs. More like impressionist paintings. Okay?"
"Okay."
"Ah," she said. "There's something."
"What?"
"Functional cluster. Getting a lot of low-level use but not enough to intrude into conscious awareness. Let's just see what happens when we—"
And I was ten years old, and I was home early and I'd just let myself into the kitchen and the smell of burned butter and garlic hung in the air. Dad and Helen were fighting in the next room. The flip-top on our kitchen-catcher had been left up, which was sometimes enough to get Helen going all by itself. But they were fighting about something else; Helen only wanted what was best for all of us but Dad said there were limits and this was not the way to go about it. And Helen said you don't know what it's like you hardly ever even seehim and then I knew they were fighting about me. Which in and of itself was nothing unusual.
What really scared me was that for the first time ever, Dad was fighting back.
"You do not force something like that onto someone. Especially without their knowledge." My father never shouted—his voice was as low and level as ever—but it was colder than I'd ever heard, and hard as iron.
"That's just garbage," Helen said. "Parents always make decisions for their children, in their best interests, especially when it comes to medical iss—"
"This is not a medical issue." This time my father's voice did rise. "It's—"
"Not a medical issue! That's a new height of denial even for you! They cut out half his brain in case you missed it! Do you think he can recover from that without help? Is that more of your father's tough love shining through? Why not just deny him food and water while you're at it!"
"If mu-ops were called for they'd have been prescribed."
I felt my face scrunching at the unfamiliar word. Something small and white beckoned from the open garbage pail.
"Jim, be reasonable. He's so distant, he barely even talks to me."
"They said it would take time."
"But two years! There's nothing wrong with helping nature along a little, we're not even talking black market. It's over-the-counter, for God's sake!"
"That's not the point."
An empty pill bottle. That's what one of them had thrown out, before forgetting to close the lid. I salvaged it from the kitchen discards and sounded out the label in my head.
"Maybe the point should be that someone who's barely home three months of the year has got his bloody nerve passing judgment on my parenting skills. If you want a say in how he's raised, then you can damn well pay some dues first. Until then, just fuck right off."
"You will not put that shit into my son ever again," my father said.
Bondfast™ Formula IV
m-Opioid Receptor Promoters / Maternal Response Stimulant
"Strengthening ties between Mother and Child since 2042"
"Yeah? And how are you going to stop me, you little geek? You can't even make the time to find out what's going on in your own family; you think you can control me all the way from fucking orbit? You think—"
Suddenly, nothing came from the living room but soft choking sounds. I peeked around the corner.
My father had Helen by the throat.
"I think," he growled, "that I can stop you from doing anything to Siri ever again, if I have to. And I think you know that."
And then she saw me. And then he did. And my father took his hand from around my mother's neck, and his face was utterly unreadable.
But there was no mistaking the triumph on hers.
I was up off the couch, the skullcap clenched in one hand. Chelsea stood wide-eyed before me, the butterfly still as death on her cheekbone.
She took my hand. "Oh, God. I'm so sorry."
"You—you saw that?"
"No, of course not. It can't read minds. But that obviously— wasn't a happy memory."
"It wasn't all that bad."
I felt sharp, disembodied pain from somewhere nearby, like an ink spot on a white tablecloth. After a moment I fixed it: teeth in my lip.
She ran her hand up my arm. "It really stressed you out. Your vitals were—are you okay?"
"Yeah, of course. No big deal." Tasting salt. "I am curious about something, though."
"Ask me."
"Why would you do this to me?"
"Because we can make it go away, Cygnus. That's the whole point. Whatever that was, whatever you didn't like about it, we know where it is now. We can go back in and damp it out just like that. And then we've got days to get it removed permanently, if that's what you want. Just put the cap back on and—"
She put her arms around me, drew me close. She smelled like sand, and sweat. I loved the way she smelled. For a while, I could feel a little bit safe. For a while I could feel like the bottom wasn't going to drop out at any moment. Somehow, when I was with Chelsea, I mattered.
I wanted her to hold me forever.
"I don't think so," I said.
"No?" She blinked, looked up at me. "Why ever not?"
I shrugged. "You know what they say about people who don't remember the past."
"Predators run for their dinner. Prey run for their lives."
— Old Ecologist's Proverb
We were blind and helpless, jammed into a fragile bubble behind enemy lines. But finally the whisperers were silent. The monsters had stayed beyond the covers.
And Amanda Bates was out there with them.
"What the fuck," Szpindel breathed.
The eyes behind his faceplate were active and searching. "You can see?" I asked.