I got back after curfew. Miss Miranda gave me a lecture about rules and responsibilities over the pounding in my head—a small physical reminder of the way we expect you to behave here, she said, smiling down at me. I hope I won’t have to speak to you about this again.
At least the pain made it easy enough to ignore everyone once I was off the elevator. Flash rushed up to find out where I went off to and if I did anything fun, Whispers told stories about my day to her make-believe friends, and Princess acted like the back wall was the most interesting thing in the room. Took her half an hour to slink her way over to where I sat on the edge of my bed in the fourth row, swinging my feet in the air and ignoring every one of Flash’s ten thousand questions. Her hair hung down in her face again, like on her very first day, and she looked like one of those trained puppies the homeless men use for begging, ready to pant and collapse at your feet the minute you look like you’ve got a few credits to spare.
“I’m sorry,” she said. She sat on the floor in front of my feet like she thought I wouldn’t kick her. “Didn’t realize the way things went around here.”
I shrugged and said, “It’s okay, you’re new.” Even though it wasn’t. Anything to get her to shut it and go away. But of course Princess was too sour milk to get any hints, just kept sitting there and staring and asking stupid things.
“How long you been here, anyway?”
“Six years. More or less. Agency said they got a bunch of us after the last big quake.”
“A bunch? They on another floor we can’t go to?”
“Nah. They all got kept by fosters whose kids got smashed up or killed same as our parents,” Flash said. “Everybody but us lifers and the lucky ones.”
“Lucky ones?” Princess’ face stayed scrunched.
“The ones who got old and got out. Hit eighteen, got their memories, never looked back.”
“Got their memories from where?” Princess asked. Flash rolled her eyes.
“From wherever they fucking keep them after Processing,” she said. “Hurts like a bitch when they rip the ’grams out, too. Like someone stabbing you through your eye. ’Course they let you remember that part. Fucking Agency.”
“It only hurts for a minute, wuss,” I said, sticking my tongue out at Flash. Normally I wouldn’t dare, but one of the good things about the way she looked at Princess, like some puppy she half-wanted to cuddle, half-wanted to kick, was that she didn’t have so much nasty left for the rest of us.
“So how come I remember everything?” Princess asked, like there was any way we’d know.
“They probably screwed up,” Flash said. “Or you’re an Agency spy. Or your brain’s so weak that it would mind-wipe you altogether.” She pointed over at Whispers, who was playing with her fingers like she’d never seen them before.
“You wish,” said Princess, flipping her hair in Flash’s general direction like she was trying to get killed. Flash ignored it. She really was getting soft.
“Only way to find out is to get into Miss Miranda’s files,” Flash said. “She’s got ’em all locked up down in the office on cube drives or something. Right, Whispers?”
“I’m just supposed to clean the office,” Whispers said, to nobody in particular.
“Fine.” Flash walked over to Whispers’ corner of the room to get her attention. “Simple question. You ever see a whole bunch of little glowy cubes in a drawer or something?”
“Leave her be, Flash,” I said. My head still hurt from Miss Miranda’s warning, and nothing got Whispers shrieking louder than getting too comfortable over in her corner of the room. The first time, she’d hollered for a good hour ’til the Agency folks figured she wasn’t gonna stop, but even now it took about ten minutes before she got dragged down to the medic and brought back passed out cold.
“I’m just asking a question, Ghost,” Flash said, leaning against the wall near Whispers’ bed. “C’mon, Whispers. I promise I’ll leave you alone if you tell.”
“The memories aren’t in the office,” Whispers said. “They’re in the cloud.” I felt my cheeks get a little hot. Stupid. I was supposed to be the big bad hacker; I should’ve guessed.
“That means we can get ’em with the computers up here, right Ghost?” Flash asked. “Like you did when you got the booze-flavored candy?”
“That was before they added all kinds of security,” I said.
“So you can’t get in?”
“Didn’t say that.”
“Then shut up and do it already,” Flash said. “I want to know why she gets to hold on to all her stupid little ’grams and they won’t let us remember shit ’til we get out of here.”
“Can’t tonight,” I said. “They’re gonna be watching the floor.”
“Yeah, ’cause you decided you had to come in late, and for no good reason either. Didn’t even bring us shit.”
“It’s not her fault,” Princess said, still lounging on the floor near my bed. “I—”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “They’re gonna be looking close for a couple days. We’ll have to try another time.”
“Or we could just distract ’em,” Flash said. Then she went and sat down, right on the edge of Whispers’ bed.
It took fifteen minutes of screams that I could feel all the way back behind my eyeballs, but eventually one of the overnight Agency guys, the one Flash thought had nice hair, came up and dragged Whispers away.
“You shouldn’t have—” I started.
“Yeah yeah,” Flash said, shrugging. “Just do it already. Before they finish drugging her up.”
I looked at Princess, but she just flipped her hair again and walked over to the computers. She had a little more hot sauce in her than I thought. Couldn’t tell yet if that was a good thing.
“Go ’head,” Flash said. “Thought you were supposed to be some kind of super-hacker.”
My head was still throbbing, worse than ever, and I knew Flash was just trying to get to me, but truth was truth. I sat down and got to typing—no way the Agency would spring for touch screens or one of those fancy robot lady voices—and was in quicker than I thought. Miss Miranda had locked down all the “bad influence” stuff pretty tight, but getting the Agency files wasn’t much harder than getting the cam feed from downstairs and watching the babies play.
“Brenda Nevins,” I read from the screen. “Resident at the Agency for the Care of Unassociated Female Minors.”
“Blah blah blah,” said Flash from across the room. She was on lookout by the elevator for when Mr. Nice Hair came back with Whispers. “Get to the good stuff.”
“It doesn’t say anything really,” I said. “Just a bunch of big words.” The whole thing was reports and warnings and psychology mumbo-jumbo. Nothing ’til I got down to the engrams section. It was a list of ’grams with titles like Discovery of Father’s Body and Trip to Percy Park on May 7th. I recognized a couple from in the booth earlier, but most I’d never even heard of, and just about all of them had the same big bold flashing letters on the far right. Not to Be Removed. See Explanation.
“ ‘Explanation,’” Princess read from over my shoulder, finger tracing along the screen like some little kid trying to figure out how words work. “ ‘To date, Miss Nevins has shown none of the aberrant or destructive behavior of many of the Agency’s other older residents. As the trauma from the loss of her father has not led her to behave negatively, we recommend that she be able to keep the majority of her memories at this time. Moreover, it can be noted that Agency resident Becky Ann Ross has shown no significant behavioral improvement since memory removal, and it is possible that the procedure itself had a negative impact on the development of Samantha Lee, leaving her prone to delusions and outbursts. While Destiny Ward has demonstrated some positive behavior changes and remains difficult to place primarily due an unfortunate lack of demand, a better form of control therapy than memory removal may need to be implemented in the future. Princess faked her way through most of the big words and probably wasn’t saying half of them right, but I knew what “lack of demand” meant.