-13-
File: 113/47/04/sfg/Continued
Source: LinkDataLinkDiaryPeter_VincentPersonal
<LinkDiary Running>
Ashley went away into a back room but returned quickly with a wooden box.
She placed it in the middle of the table, flipped open the top, and revealed a cone-shaped device festooned with wires and circuits. Some of the wires terminated in flat plates of shining metal. It all had an odd, homemade look that made me think that the woman was playing some kind of joke or trick.
She put the wooden box on the floor under the table and then gestured at the cone.
‘This is what we call a LinkCrawler,’ she explained. ‘It’s not the best name ever, but what the hex. We use them to hack into our own operating systems. It’s pretty new tech, and we haven’t got it all worked out yet, but it allows a person to look at the code for the software that we’re running.’ She noticed my disbelieving look.
‘I’m not kidding you,’ she said, somewhat defensively. ‘It’s not something we’re particularly good at reading yet, but there’s definitely code.’ She shrugged and then grinned. ‘It’s a total blast, by the way.’
I stared at the object on the table. It looked kinda stupid.
‘Now Alpha was saying that this is a rather … emotional memory for you,’ Ashley continued. ‘You sure you don’t mind if a complete stranger joins in?’
I shook my head. ‘Alpha also said she thinks there might be some data missing from the memory,’ I told her. ‘I’m pretty keen on finding out if she’s right.’
Alpha gave me a smile, warm and encouraging.
‘OK,’ Ashley said, as she moved wires on the LinkCrawler, performing some final adjustments. ‘The Link pulls data from loads of sources, and it’s doing it all of the time. Much of that time we don’t even realise it’s doing anything at all. It even runs while we sleep. Do you want to know the weirdest thing, Peter? We are the most curious creatures this planet has ever known, we have discovered the secrets of the atom, taken ourselves into space in search of answers out there, we have plumbed the deepest depths of the planet’s oceans, and yet we don’t ask questions about the Link. About what it is, what it does, whether we even need it in our lives …’
‘Or how it works?’ I said.
Ashley raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes, that’s the BIG question that no one asks,’ she said. ‘That no one dares to ask. Because it shouldn’t work, should it? The Link happened pretty much overnight,’ she continued. ‘There was no sudden technological breakthrough, no patent was ever filed, there are no records of the commercial development of this world-changing technology. It just happened. Like we woke up one day and the Link was suddenly there. We could communicate across vast distances with nothing but our minds to make it happen.
‘Have you read the Straker Tapes?’
‘Last night,’ I said. ‘Kind of eye-opening.’
‘So you know the odd things that Kyle said towards the end of his account? About how the unknown programmers were upgrading humanity for purposes of their own? That they were networking us as storage space …’
‘And you think that the Link might be a result of that networking?’ I asked.
Ashley looked impressed. ‘Think about how the people in the later stages of Kyle’s account seemed linked together. Maybe networking is necessary – not to us, but to our programmers.
‘Humanity, however, just came along and did what it always does: it took advantage of an existing resource. I think that the Link is a use we found for it.’
She finished tinkering with the device and smiled.
‘All done,’ she said. ‘You ready to give this a try?’
I nodded.
‘Smart AND brave.’ Ashley smiled a reassuring smile. ‘Just put your hand on the table,’ she instructed. ‘You too, Alpha.’ We both did as we were told. ‘Link up, folks.’ We all deployed our filaments. ‘Now connect yourselves up to a platen …’
I stared at her.
‘One of the flat metal plates,’ Ashley explained.
The metal was warm and vibrated as the connection was made. Alpha and Ashley linked up to it too.
‘Alpha says that she felt something odd about this memory file from the outset,’ Ashley said. ‘So why don’t we start at the very beginning?’
I nodded, accessed the file, and it played through again.
-11 (part 2)-
File: 040/7/113/mother
Source: LinkDataLinkDiaryDeep_Storagekey_memory
<Play Memory>
<LinkDiary On>
I am eight years old.
I’m in the garden, watching the bees.
And I am recording it straight on to the Link.
They fascinate me, the bees, they always have.
It’s the way that they seem to be living creatures, even though I know that they aren’t.
I mean they move and fly and buzz and – occasionally – swarm, and if you sit and watch them you can see them do something that looks too much like play to be anything that could have been programmed into their circuits.
I’m watching two of them as they perform a sort of dance on the leaves of a flower in the garden. One is circling around in a clockwise direction, shaking its body every few seconds or so; the other is moving anticlockwise and seems to be echoing the shakes of its companion.
I think they are talking.
Communicating.
And I’m wondering just what it is that synthetic bees have to talk about.
<Wait a minute: pause this here, can you?> Ashley says, and I halt the memory. <That’s good, don’t lose it, just hold it steady.>
I do as she says, and keep the memory frozen like a still picture. It just takes a little concentration.
Ashley says: <This can’t be right.>
<What?> I ask.
<Well, first off: ‘I am eight years old’.> Ashley says. <That’s how the memory starts, isn’t it?>
<Er, y-e-es.> I say, slightly patronisingly.
<The rest of the memory is not in an eight-year-old’s syntax.> Ashley says. <It’s not the way an eight-year-old talks.> she explains before I ask. <And there’s something here … the bees … I mean it’s not possible, is it? Here, let me try something.>
The bees, I think, what is she talking about?
I’m about to ask her, but suddenly I feel her presence on the wires like an electrical current passing through me, and the next thing I know she is stepping into the memory itself.
One second I’m looking at my treasured memory, and the next … she’s in it.
Standing there. In my memory.
I can see her, just off to the side of that long-past me. She is looking around sort of absently. The rest of the image is frozen, but she is moving around it. All of a sudden I’m reminded of the Straker Tapes, and of Kyle and Lilly moving around the village green while the rest of the villagers are frozen.
Weird.
Suddenly she kneels down. She is concentrating on the dance of the bees.
<Come in.> she says. <Just think about entering the memory, and it will happen. Both of you.>
I concentrate on doing exactly as I am instructed and feel an odd tension, as if I am pushing against a solid surface, and then there’s some give and suddenly I am standing next to Alpha and Ashley …
And me.
… and a small boy …
It’s me!
… who is studying the bees as they dance across the leaves of a flower.
The light is almost too real to be real.
Hyper-real.
It’s bright and warm and I can feel the sun of that long gone day beating down upon me. I’m supposed to be sitting in a dark little café and I still feel the urge to shade my eyes.
<Pretty weird, huh?> Ashley says, and I can only just manage a nod.
Although ‘weird’ is not a strong enough word to describe this. I’ve been using it already.
Weirdest, perhaps.
<Peter?> Ashle
y says. <Meet … well, Peter.>
She points to the boy – to me! – and I feel my head start to struggle with the situation.
<How?> I ask. <I … shouldn’t he … how can I …?>
<That’s kinda the point here.> Ashley says. <I guess you need to work it all out for yourself. Have a look around.>
So I do. In a daze.
I am walking around my own memory.
Like I’ve travelled back in time seven years.
I can see the boy as clearly as I have ever seen anything. His face is a little fatter than mine is now, and the hair a little curlier, but it is unmistakeably me.
<Ask the question.> Ashley says.
I don’t have to ask her what she is talking about. There’s a leaden feeling in my stomach and my mind is fizzing with the impossibility of what I am seeing.
<It doesn’t makes sense.> I tell her. <I recorded this memory to the Link, just like I always do …>
<So?>
<So how can I see ME?> I say breathlessly. <I should just see what I saw, but there’s no way I could see me seeing it. I … I shouldn’t be there. I should be seeing this from that little boy’s point of view. How is this possible?>
<I think it’s what tipped off Alpha,> Ashley replies. <The answer is: I don’t think this is entirely your own memory of the event. Someone else has constructed this for you. They’ve used enough of your own thoughts to give the feeling of it being yours, but it’s a fabrication. A cut and paste job made up of your memories and someone else’s.>
<Why would someone go to that trouble?>
<Another good question. Maybe we should investigate. Have a look around for clues.>
I can only nod. My mouth is completely dry and I feel like someone has pulled the world out from underneath my feet.
If I can no longer trust the evidence of my LinkDiary, then how can I trust anything?
So I search around the scene of that painful, wonderful memory looking for signs that it is constructed. Looking for things that don’t fit.
I look at the boy that I once was, his brow creased as he tries to figure what it is the bees are trying to tell him …
<That’s it,> Ashley says. <What are the bees trying to tell him? Or, more crucially, what are they trying to tell you?>
Bees? What are the bees saying? She’s … oh wait, this is messed up.
The rest of the memory is frozen still, like a moment trapped in Lucite, but the bees are still moving! And I realise that they’re not humming, they’re not buzzing, they’re …
They’re talking.
They are talking to each other.
It sounds like voices overheard from a long way away: I can’t hear the actual words, but I do recognise them as words.
I kneel down next to that young Peter, his face frozen as he too studies the bees. It feels so utterly strange, to be so close to a past version of me, and I find I have to just kind of ignore him.
Ignore me.
Or go mad.
And the bees are moving, but not in an ordinary bee-like pattern. Their metal and plastic bodies are smooth and clean, but there is something very odd … very sinister … in what they are doing. They seem to be winking in and out of existence as they move, disappearing here, reappearing over there, as if there is some sort of a graphical glitch in the memory file.
I can hear them clearly now.
… I don’t understand, one bee is saying. You’re scaring me, Mummy.
I have to go away, the other bee replies. I just have to, that’s all.
But … I … I need you, Mummy. It’s my voice, from the past.
I’ve never heard this part of the memory before.
I need you to be strong, my mother’s voice tells me, and I feel the tears welling up in my eyes at the sound of her voice. It sounds so sad, so full of regret.
Mummy! I hear myself shout. Mummy. Don’t go. Please.
I have to. I love you, Petey, always remember that. I’m doing this … I’m doing this for you. For all the children like you. I … I have to go, Petey. I have to go back.
Go back? I think. Go back where? What is she talking about?
The bees are moving normally now, they are no longer appearing and disappearing, they are just moving in their incomprehensible dance across the leaves in the garden.
<Peter?> someone asks me, and I realise that it is Alpha. She is next to me in the memory, and she puts her hand on to my shoulder.
It restarts the memory.
A gentle hand on my shoulder pulls me out of my thoughts. The hand squeezes and I know it is my mother without turning around. My father doesn’t do shows of affection.
I turn around and there she is, my mother, and the way she’s standing – in front of a blazing sun – makes it seem like there’s a halo of light surrounding her.
<Freeze it. Freeze it there.> Ashley tells me and I do just as she says. The memory once more becomes a still frame.
I am overwhelmed with a sense of loss. I mean, it’s a miracle that I am here, standing so close to her, but it’s just a reminder of everything that I lost when she walked out of our garden seven years ago …
<I don’t think she did,> Ashley says and I realise that I am broadcasting my thoughts. <Take a look at her. I mean take a really close look at her. And pay attention to the edges.>
The edges? What the hex is she talking about …
Oh, wait.
I move closer and I see immediately what Ashley is talking about. The edges of my mother are hazy, strange, and it looks like she is an image that has been … cut away from its background.
Like the memory itself has been … edited.
<That’s right.> Ashley says. <I don’t think that this is really where this scene took place.>
I reach out my hand and touch the tattered edges of my mother’s image. Here, up close, it’s so obvious that the memory has been tampered with. I can even feel the edit marks tingle in my fingertips as I touch them, like tiny electric shocks.
I realise that Ashley is right, and just about everything about this memory is a lie.
This is the most important memory that I have, I think, and it’s not even real.
I feel a blood-red anger that boils inside me.
<Can we reconstruct the true memory?> I demand, urgently. <Is there any way …?>
<Way ahead of you there,> Ashley says, and there is a lightness in her voice that puzzles me. She sounds like she’s enjoying this … This is just a technical problem for her to solve, and she must like solving problems.
<There’s not enough data in the edits around your mother, but …>
<But?>
<Well, I’m thinking about the bees again,> Ashley tells me. <I don’t believe that the conversation we overheard coming from the bees belongs here. I don’t think the person who edited this memory was the same person that encoded the data on to the bees. I think … I think YOU did it, Peter.>
<Me?>
<Yep.> Ashley was suddenly right beside me. <I think that a part of you wanted to hold on to the truth of this scene, and that you hid that conversation in the nearest data store, which just so happened to be the bees. Even though you were only eight years old you managed to preserve that piece of data. I doubt if you even did it consciously.>
<You’re saying that I have hidden the true memory within a faked memory?> I ask incredulously. <And I did it when I was eight?>
<Well.> Alpha says. <I knew there was something special about you.>
It makes me smile. Makes it sound less like craziness, too, somehow.
<If someone went to all the trouble of altering this memory …> Alpha says. <Then they must have a pretty good reason, don’t you think?>
<There can only be one ‘someone’.> I say grimly. <My father. He couldn’t even leave me with a pure memory of my mother. What do I do?>
Ashley says: <Look around. Find the places that you might have hidden clues. And look out for any other mistakes made in the editing
process. Either way we might get some more detail.>
I get down on my hands and knees and I scan the area. The garden of that lost summer’s day. Flowers and bees and grass.
There’s nothing here.
Nothing except the questions I’ve got running around inside my head.
<Run the memory on a bit,> Alpha says. <Keep looking for anything that doesn’t seem … quite right.>
I do exactly what she says.
I feel myself smile.
She is my world, I think, and it makes me feel warm.
And then I notice something.
My mother is not smiling.
She’s standing there, looking down at me, her edges blurred by the brightness of the sun, and her face looks … sad. As if she is on the edge of tears.
I stop the memory again.
I look at my mother’s edges, blurred by the brightness of the sun.
And I think about finding the edit marks around her image and how obvious they looked when they were pointed out to me. I think that the dazzling aura that surrounds her must have made it easier to edit the image, and that maybe the person doing the editing might have just slipped up, figured that the brightness would do a lot of their work for them, by masking the edges.
Maybe there is an answer in that aura.
I move closer and study the light around her. There are no longer any of the crude editing marks around her edges. I imagine a control panel and it appears in my hand as a controller. I locate a zoom and use it to enlarge a section of the aura. And I can see something in the midst of the light. I use my tools to alter the image, trying different filters.
<Good.> Ashley says. <There’s definitely something there.>
It looks like the surface of some pretty rusty metal – which seems to prove that the background this memory originally occupied certainly was not our garden – but metal is metal and there is nothing to help place it in the real world.
But the rusty texture that I have revealed – poorly masked around my mother’s image – makes me certain that my father has made a mistake. I’m sure that he never expected me to subject this memory to this type of scrutiny.