Sam grinned. “Sure. Why not? I’ve lost my memory as the direct result of someone taking it from me, but it turns out that I’ve got a great life, and I’ve managed to rekindle a relationship with a beautiful woman, what’s not to like?”
Her lips parted in a restrained smile. She’d been a doctor long enough to know when someone was protecting themselves under the mental armor of a happy disposition and a façade of positivity. “It’s going to be all right. Your memory, most of it, will come back.”
“I wonder if you will still be here when it does.”
She took his hand and kissed it. “I will be if you want me to.”
Sam looked at her. “Thank you.”
They waited in silence for another couple seconds. He tried to process the news as best he could. Failing to come up with any answer, he returned to the data he’d neglected that was still in front of him.
A slight grin creased his lips. “What about the suitcase?”
“You’re right. Open the suitcase… maybe it will clear you of all wrongdoing, and make sense of everything… or at least something.”
“Or maybe it will prove that I’m part of the Russian mafia?”
“I doubt it.”
Sam said, “I’m not sure I am yet…”
“I am,” she replied, a tease of laugher in her voice. “But I can’t rule out the Italian mafia…”
He laughed out loud, a sudden tension easing in the process.
For some reason he hadn’t even considered that as a possibility, but it certainly made more sense, after all, he was in Italy. If the Russian mafia had a problem with him, he would have been more likely to have woken up in Moscow.
“All right,” he said, “let’s open it.”
She put the suitcase on the coffee table.
Sam grabbed it and pulled it toward him. It was a metallic case that looked unnaturally military or clandestine — something one would expect to be seen carrying the nuclear codes for the president. The sight of it reassured him that he’d made the right decision by stashing it when he had, instead of trying to carry it with him. He would have stood out too much, and would almost definitely have been arrested by now otherwise.
He flipped the suitcase over.
It was made from some sort of metallic alloy, and designed so that each side slid in perfectly together, barely revealing any opening at all. There were no obvious locking mechanisms. Nothing external that could be broken off.
There was a piece of protective metal, a small sliver no longer than a person’s thumb, which covered something.
Unable to see anything else to work with, Sam slid it open.
Inside was a digital touch screen with eight numbers.
Sam frowned.
Catarina asked, “What have you got?”
“It needs me to enter an eight-digit numerical code.”
She made a pensive pause. “Eight digits… like a date of birth?”
“Sure. But whose?”
“I would try yours first.”
“That seems a little obvious. I mean, if I was, presumably, carrying something vitally important, don’t you think I would have used a better security code than my date of birth?”
“Sure. Unless, you specifically wanted to find it?”
“Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know. What if you knew someone was trying to erase your memory? Maybe you left yourself some sort of clue to get it back again?”
“Does the brain work like that?” Sam asked, his voice hopeful. “I mean, is it likely an image, sound, taste, or smell will trigger a memory, and like a cascade, my whole life will come back?”
“Not really, but definitely little things will help. If you have been treated with electric convulsive therapy, depending on the number of courses you have been bombarded with, the global amnesia can last anywhere between a matter of hours, through to days and weeks, but eventually you should regain some if not most of your long-term memories.”
“Why?”
“Who knows? The human brain’s an amazing computer. No one really understands how it works.”
“I thought you were meant to be a leading expert on memory loss?”
“I am.” She smiled. “Why do you think I’m studying the human brain and trying to map out how it categorizes data — AKA memories?”
Sam asked, “So what happens in my case?”
“In global amnesia, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
Catarina answered without hesitation, like a lecturer, who’d given a speech on the subject more than a dozen times. “In its simplest form, the human brain, attempts to store memories in giant databases, categorizing specific memories by date, time, and relevant event. In fact, over the course of your lifetime, your brain will store every single sense — we’re talking sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste here — and it will store them forever.”
“Wait… you’re telling me the human brain stores everything we’ve ever done.”
“Yep.”
“Then, why do people need to study for anything? I mean, if the brain’s already storing it, why do we need to keep studying material over and over again until it becomes stored in our memory? I’m sure I would have done better at college if I retained everything the first-time round.”
“Ah, good question.” Her eyes sparkled with delight. “It has to do with categorizing the database. You see, the human brain likes to associate things together, cataloguing them by sight — for example, a cat and by any other senses, received, such as the feeling of patting a soft furry creature, and smell of flea powder.”
“Okay…” Sam said, waiting for the problem.
“The problem comes with the simple fact that you might have hundreds if not thousands of images of cats in your database — hey, I’m not judging you here — but the reality is, the human brain knows that you have no need for all of them, so it subconsciously tries to attach more relevance to the most important images. For example, if you received a cat on your fifth birthday, assuming it was a good one, your brain would have been fed with a number of neurochemicals, such as dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins making you feel happy. Alternatively, if you were attacked by a cat, your brain would have been fed increased levels of adrenaline and nor-adrenaline, which your brain then registers that event as important, in case it needs to be suddenly cross-referenced at a later date — you know, if you see a cat again, you shouldn’t get too close or it will scratch at you.”
“So the problem is in that cataloguing of information, not the recording?”
“Exactly.”
“Right. Let’s hope whatever’s inside here happens to be the key.”
“So open it.”
“I still don’t have a clue about the password.”
“Try your birthday.”
“I don’t even know my own birthday!”
“See!” she said. “Exactly. What a perfect password for a man who’s lost his memory?”
“I don’t suppose you remember it, do you?”
She grinned. “Of course I do.”
She read out his date of birth. He committed it to memory, hoping that his brain would take the appropriate measure to categorize it correctly so that he could find it again later. Somehow, one’s own birthdate seemed like something pretty important to know.
He typed the eight-digit number into the keypad and pressed enter.
The numbers flashed, and the case remained locked.
Sam said, “I told you it wouldn’t work.”
Catarina bit her lower lip, her face expressive, and inquisitive. “What if you changed the numbers around?”
“In what way?”
“Put the days of the month in first, followed by the month, then the year.”
“Why?”
“Because your mother was Australian, and like the rest of the world, that’s the way they write dates.”
“You think it’s another trick within a trick? Once my memory developed enough that I could remember my date of birth, I still needed to remember that my mother was Australian? It seems pretty far-fetched.”