His mind kept replaying the words of the TV anchor reading from the prompt screen. Everyone who made it to a Memoria branch before midnight could try their new service for free. Everyone could choose to have any skill he wanted downloaded into their minds. The list of professions offered was long: after all, the corporation database had amassed quite a few files over the last years.
Now Jessup understood why Memoria had been so active in the last several months, opening new branches all over the country. Its directors were busy working on the project of the century, willing to give everyone happiness and prosperity and to revitalize the nation — something that their pushy motto had been promising for the last three decades.
He knew well that this objective was only a smoke screen for a much more important goaclass="underline" to amass as much money and power as possible. Those were the only two things Memoria cared about. With the exception of Jesus, no one had ever given people bread for free. Very soon, he and his men would be history. Professional skills would be a dime a dozen, and army veterans like himself would become the new cannon fodder: Memoria would still need their minds, but only in order to extract the memories they needed, digitize their professional experience, then compress the resulting files to the desired size and sell them like hot cakes. Another week or a month, and new professionals would arrive to replace them: bright-eyed and chock-full of competences, who would pass any employee rating with flying colors — and who would probably teach Jessup how to do his job.
That’s why he hurried to explain to his men what the Vaccination could mean to them. He shared his reasons behind Gizbo’s arrest and told them about the reporter who’d seen and heard Frank Shelby in Memoria’s tower. After that, he started setting new objectives for his unit commanders.
Chapter Nineteen. Personality Correction
The light was so bright it penetrated his tightly shut eyelids. Frank sensed the heat from the lamp — or lamps, all directed at his face. He was afraid of opening his eyes: the excruciating pain at the back of his head made his brain feel as if it was about to explode, splattering grayish-bloody goo out of his ears, nostrils and his agonizing mouth.
He half-sat with his back bent, his buttocks and thighs touching the hard surface. What could it be — some kind of a hospital bed or an operating chair? The pain in his head started to subside. The lamps’ warm glow distracted him from feeling the blood pulsate in his temples and the back of his head.
Frank tried to move his hand and failed. Something prevented it from moving. He tried to shift his legs and sit up — also in vain. He lay bound; his chest, shoulders, elbows, hands, legs and feet all strapped with what felt like leather belts. Before he forced himself to open his eyes and investigate, he heard a voice to one side,
“He’s coming to.”
“Finally!” another voice said. “Thank God for that.”
The second voice sounded familiar. Frank had definitely heard it before — from a distance, and slightly distorted. Who could it have been, and where?
“Can you dim the lights, Bow? Even my eyes are hurting. It must be hell for him.”
“Yes, sir.”
The warmth and the light subsided, making Frank’s eyelids twitch. Thousands of colored stars whirled before his eyes, bringing the pain back. Blood pulsated, burning through the skull.
“You think he can hear me?” the familiar voice said.
A man’s breath and a whiff of an expensive aftershave brushed Frank’s face as the speaker walked around his bed and approached it from the right.
“I think so, sir. I’d suggest you wait a little. Don’t try and speak to him. Combined with memory retrieval, the selective memory scan may take a lot of time and can be quite painful. We can expect a temporary cerebral dysfunction followed by a nervous breakdown. The subject needs time to recover.”
“I don’t have the time. Can’t you give him a painkiller?”
“Out of the question. It may trigger a seizure. Then it would be impossible to—”
“Bow, I thought I made it perfectly clear. In an hour, I’m meeting with the Mayor. Then I’m flying to DC.”
Where is he, for Christ’s sake? Frank barely felt the touch of the needle to his neck. What had happened to him?
Another minute, and the pain subsided, leaving him free to think. His head cleared a little. But almost immediately, his lids became heavy. Now he felt drowsy and tired and had to force himself to resist sleep and open his eyes.
He lay on a low bed in his trousers and shoes, about three feet above the floor. His body was bound with leather straps. Frank tried to move. His limbs were seriously numb. He started flexing his muscles, clenched his fists and moved his feet, trying to get the blood going.
“Ah,” the voice resounded above his ear. “Nothing like exercise, eh?”
Frank craned his neck to look to his right. Russell Jefferson Claney stood next to his bed, easily recognizable by his smooth scalp pulled tight over his skull. The Congressman gave him a smug smile.
Frank turned away and looked to his left. A gaunt man in a lab coat stood there, his fair hair tousled, his hands going through surgical tools in steel sterilization boxes on the table. He did it with the ease of a trained professional who knew what belonged where. Without even looking, the man opened a medicine cabinet by the table and took a plastic box from the upper shelf.
Sensing Frank’s stare, the man turned round. Now Frank remembered him. The man looked tired now, and the winsome smile was gone from his face, but he looked the same as when he’d stood next to Claney on the screen of Max’s army laptop…
His coach. His last words.
Frank’s throat went dry. He couldn’t breathe. His heart thumped. Frank closed his eyes remembering all the events of the last few days, and wanted to scream with his own weakness.
“You’ve made me worried, Shelby,” Claney said. “And wait, too. Wait longer than I could afford. I’d love to pay you in kind but—”
Frank looked up, disdain in his eyes.
“What-” he had to clear his throat and start again, “What stops you?” He didn’t recognize his voice, distant and trembling, the voice of an old man. He could barely move his lips. His throat rasped.
“I’m glad to see you in good cheer. That’s my boy. You and I, we know what we want and how to go about it. You’re just like your father. I remember him well; you’re a chip off the old block. Your ambition, your ability to plan in advance and act accordingly — it must run in the family, you know. But as I said, I’m too pressed for time to play mind games with you. Frank,” Claney shook his head, “I have to admit I’m disappointed. You didn’t see the tape. You couldn’t appreciate our scope. We’ve tried so hard…” He sighed. “In any case, you didn’t even need the tape. You’ve worked it all out yourself without it. Well, almost.”
He glanced at Frank, checking his reaction.
“There was a moment, you know, when I very nearly offered you a position on our team. Imagine the possibility for promotion!” He bent over him. “One year, and you’re a sector manager, another, and you’re on the directors’ board. But — I’ve changed my mind. Thinking of you was a weakness.”
Frank squinted at Bow, wincing from the ache in the back of his head. Three paces away from the bed was a white door with some machines to its left, and also a cabinet and a water cooler. Next to them stood a table where the researcher was still fiddling with his stuff.
The room looked like an operating theater, with its light tiled walls and powerful lamps under the ceiling, framed in stainless steel. Only one lamp worked, dimmed to half power.
“Why?” Frank unglued his lips.